Midwest Creative Collective

Here’s the hat I made most recently:

This hat is made from silk fibers that I hand painted with dye and then laid out for a “fusion” fabric.  This is very much like paper making only I used a textile medium to permanently bond the fibers.  I take the wet fabric and drape it over a prepared mold….a hat form I created.   I let it dry and then peel it from the form and finish it (which usually means I add beads!). 

 I think if you click on the image it might get bigger.

This one is a miniature (brim is 5.5″ total dia)  I made it to honor an additional entry requirement for my last show, “Prairie State Art Fair” held at Arlinton Park Race Track.  We were asked to submit a piece that reflected horses or horse racing.  The title is: “Ladies Day at Arlington Park”.  I’m happy to add that I made the little hat stand, too! I melted a clear rod to create a flat button top for the hat base…then inserted the rod into a hole I drilled in the acylic ice cube.  (You all do have acrylic ice cubes in your stashes, right?)

typihg with a cat licking my fingers.

Tammy Deck

Wow!  Two Tammy’s here!  I’d like to welcome Tammy Deck from TLD Designs.  We’re gonna get some more fabulous fiber here now.  Glad you decided to join us Tammy.  I’m looking forward to drooling over your posts.  LOL

Felting 101

What a great time I had yesterday! My friend Rebekah and I went to TLD Designs in Westmont and took a felting class with Tammy. Tammy makes some absolutely beautiful felted items as well as doing weaving, spinning, and other fiber arts. Her work has been highlighted in Belle Armoire magazine and she’s been on “That’s Clever” on HGTV.

I’ll just give a brief description of what we did. If you want all the details, you have to take the class. LOL I will tell you though, that you need to wear a T-shirt, not a sweater. It’s not a passive process at all. If I felted all the time, I’d definitely be in better shape!

We started the process by taking what’s basically a hunk of unspun wool, called roving. We pulled very fine fibers from it and laid them down on a sheet of muslin to form the base of our scarves.

It’s not easy to get the right amount as it needs to be very fine. Mine is almost too much!

Once we laid our fibers down then we started doing the structure of the piece. We started by laying down long strands of yarns. We wanted to use yarns that would felt well so if we added something in that wasn’t a ‘felter’, then we had to be sure that it was crossed by a piece that was. This is Rebekah starting to lay down the long strands.

Once that process was finished, we started doing our designs. We could use spirals, swirls, anything that we wanted to give structure to the design. The more structure, the sturdier the piece. When we were through with that part, we went back to fill any little areas that needed it with roving.

I was too busy working to take pictures of the rest of the process but basically we finished this part, covered it with what looked like a curtain and then got it wet. Once that was done, we started the felting process with a sander. Yep. We got to play with power tools too! The next parts of the process were the felting itself. We rolled the whole thing up, soaked it in hot water and went to work. The hardest part is the last 30 minutes, trust me on this one. My hands still hurt. After the felting is accomplished, I brought my masterpiece home and hung it to dry. And, voila, here it is…

Have you ever felt that way? Last week I was faced with forcing myself to be creative and it was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do.

There is an art show I have attended with my mother every year for the past 17 years. It’s always been a dream of mine to be in the show but I never really felt my work was up to the task.

This year I decided I wanted to apply. I kept rolling the ideas around in my head. The show has many jewelry artists exhibiting and a few lampworkers so competition is tough. I knew I had to really come up with some “WOW” stuff to even be considered. My slides that have gotten me into shows in the past just didn’t seem good enough.

The closer the deadline came, the less creative I felt. It was so much pressure. Like a gun to my head with myself saying “Create Dammit!”. I kept procrastinating, allowing myself to be distracted by any little thing. It was not going well.

As the midnight deadline approached (last Friday) I was sitting at my kitchen table with a huge mess of beads, fibers, cords, wire, you name it, it was in the pile. I had made and taken apart countless ideas that just didn’t work out. I was mad, in tears, frustrated. I knew whatever it was I had to finish it, then take it downstairs and photograph it, then come back to the computer to resize it, then upload it to their site and submit my application.

Finally I got an idea with potential! I’ll bet a light bulb really appeared above my head. I started furiously braiding my cord, bending wire, stringing beads… then I got an idea for a matching bracelet. I was pushing it time wise (it was 10PM) but I could do it!

At 10:30 I raced downstairs and my husband was all set with the lights on and the camera ready to go. With a few quick clicks I was back at my computer resizing… wait a minute! There’s a hair right in the middle of it. Dog hair, cat hair, someone’s hair! Down the stairs again… re shoot the pictures. I can feel I’m running out of time. I’m panicking.

I made it back to the computer to resize again and click on the ’submit’ button and the page just sits there… loading… forever it seemed. Suddenly I was kicked back to the main page and when I tried to resubmit my application I received the error message that the show was closed for entries.

I cried… and cried… and cried. I felt like I had run a marathon all day long and tripped 5 feet from the finish line. I was so frustrated, mad at myself for procrastinating, for not being more creative.

Before going to bed I decided to e-mail the show and just see if they might possibly accept any late entries. I know some will and you have to pay a higher application fee but at this point the site wasn’t even allowing any applications. So I put my whole story out there to this generic e-mail address and went to bed feeling defeated. I was hoping for the best but not expecting it.

I received an e-mail back two days later. She told me she would ‘try’ to reopen the application process later in the week, but no promises.

It’s too late to make this long story short but I’ll wrap it up… she DID reopen that section of the site and I was able to submit my application. Whether or not I’m chosen to be in the show, I’ll always remember how this set came to life and use it as a reminder. A reminder that procrastination is bad… a reminder that creativity isn’t forced, it flows… a reminder to never give up… and a reminder that if a door closes, find another one to open.

I hope reading this helps you all to remember those things too.

I named this ‘On My Horizon’…

My new favorite tool is the Diva Custom Cord Maker.  I picked this up at Blue Fire Beads last weekend and haven’t put it down since!  The kit comes with everything you need except fibers.  You need seven lengths of fibers.  I used about 42″ for each one.  Here is the kit with the fibers wound onto the spools. 

When you wind the spools, leave about six inches unwound and tie the ends in a knot.  Pull the knot through the bottom of your disk (3 with different hole sizes are included) then attach the included clip to the knot for weight. 

Now, flip the disk over so the clip is underneath and put the fibers in each slot.  The order doesn’t matter and there will be one empty spot.  Now, you can start weaving!  Count three spaces from the blank space, grab that fiber and move it to the blank spot.  Turn the new blank spot towards yourself, count three spaces and move that fiber.  Repeat these steps while occasionally giving the braid a little tug.  

Here, my cord is about 3 inches long.   

About 35 minutes later, I’ve got about 23 inches of cord.    At this point I can tie the end and my cord is ready to use. 

Here are some of my cords.  I’ve used lots of furry, textured fibers. This is the one I was working on it the above pictures.                  

This one was made using C-Lon for a really delicate look.

This one is very thick.  I used 14 strands instead of 7. 

I took these pictures while I was working on the cord, so as you can see, I’m in the living room with Thumper who’s watching TV!