amateurs.

Novice photographer meets never-modeled-but-sure-I'll-try former dancer.    Some of the better results:

Spiritual wool-gathering

Art and religion.  A longstanding combination.  I've been asked to venture into felting prayer shawls by my rabbi.  The idea appeals.  I did some homework and learned that there is a prayer to be said and detailed instructions for tying off knots in the four corners.  I have a few designs in my sketchbook.  But the first actual commission to come my way that mixes religion and art is for a minister's stole.  A friend of my sister-in-law is about to become a pastor.  Different homework teaches me different measurements, no prescribed prayer or blessing.  We have settled on a design.  My requirement for myself is that I do not create without having the right mindset. This piece will be for sacred work.  It doesn't matter that it is not my religion.  Sacred, spiritual, blessed.  Find that space in my heart and in my soul.
Meditate.
Pray.
Felt.

Skyburst

Figured out how to felt it.  Several ideas of how to wear it.  One option shown here.

Inspiration

I spend a morning shopping with a friend.  I need a dress for my son's bar mitzvah and, in search of something interesting to wear, we explore several little stores in downtown Rochester Hills.  While out and about, I spot a large wrap: a rectangle split up the center, length-wise, on one half.  The two thinner pieces hang in front of the body and the uncut side hangs down the back.  It could be tacked together on the sides to make a vest-like tunic, or it could be left as is so the thinner pieces can wrap like a scarf.

At home later, I sort through my silk yardage.  Light grey silk chiffon with a bluish hue to it calls to me.  I put another long table alongside my usual work surface to accommodate the extra width of this project.  I have never worked this large before.  Carefully, I cut the silk right up the middle and fold the edges over.  Now the wool.  Merino wool roving in a dark teal blue that I find I use frequently in my work.  Another ball of roving in variegated shades of grey, black and white.  More wool in a steely blue grey.  Thick layers of all three colors along what will be the bottom edges when worn.  I'm hoping for a wonderful ruffle of soft wool.  Then I take wool and run it along the outside edges of this large work.  The exposed silk edging should gather and mirror the wool ruffles along the bottom.  I work similarly near the edges of the center cut.  This will cover the cut edge as well as continue the ruffle idea.

But here is this opening that will sit on the neck and shoulders.  It has a raw edge that needs wool so it won't unravel.  I haven't cut it in such a way as to create a collar (maybe next time).  As I start to lay wool, I use the combination of colors I used for the bottom ruffles.  I have no precise idea as I begin, but slowly it becomes a small skyburst as I gently place whisps of teal against the grey.

It looks too flat.  I fumble through my bin of wool yarns, pleased to find a silvery grey similar to, but not quite the same as, the solid grey roving.  Always drawn to swirling shapes, I unwind the yarn in small loops along the sides and the bottom edges.  I continue the skyburst feeling with streaks of silver yarn radiating outward from the neck.

Still something is missing.  I can't find my embroidery floss.  Did my daughter sneak off with it to make friendship bracelets?  I really want to finish this.  Oh, yes.  I forgot about the silk throwster's waste I bought this summer.  Pieces of teal that work brilliantly in scatterings all over the wool.

It looks amazing.

Now, how on earth do I felt a piece this large?

to be continued ....

child's play

Sometimes, if I have room on the surface area where I've laid out a scarf to roll, I'll use the extra room for a rectangle of wool layers that I can stitch up into a clutch purse or a Little Bag or a Bigger Little Bag after it's felted.

These little purses give me a chance to try out techniques I've seen or heard about without a huge investment in effort and materials.  Recently, I started playing with m childrens' marbles.

I placed them between layers of wool and snipped them out after the wool was fully felted. The effect was brilliant (the bag sold before I even had a strap on it) and makes me want to use different shaped toys on my next effort.

My interest in childhood activities also led me to create a gorgeous strap based on the friendship bracelets my daughter now makes for her girlfriends.  (I'm lucky enough to be sporting one on my own ankle as well.)


Right now, I'm working large; too large to create another little bag.  But when this big piece is done, I can't wait to see what other advantage I can pull from having children.  Or is it that I'm still just a child myself?

Oooh, pretty!

So many different things can inspire me to start a new project.  Sometimes it is a photograph, or flowers climbing up a lamppost.  Today it is a particularly soft, fuzzy yarn that moves from cool periwinkle to ivory white to chocolate brown.  I rummaged through my stash (this felter's stash consists of many balls of dyed roving, lots of interesting yarn, various fabrics but mostly silk) until I found the perfect roving to accompany this yarn.

Now all I need is a dark brown silk scarf as a base.  I begin by laying pieces of fuzzy yarn down and add some other pieces of plain yarn in similar colors.  None of these will felt directly onto the silk so I'll end up with a wonderful draping effect after I'm finished.

Then I begin laying thin layers of roving down, sandwiching the yarn between silk and wool.  I lay the wool in a long swooping design that will hang beautifully around the shoulders.  (Over time, I've realised I care enormously about how it hangs.  If the work is hard to wear, it will sit in a closet or in my inventory.  What is the point of that?)

I've sandwiched lengths of yarn at the ends of the scarf so their will be a bit of fringe later. I am also taking a chance and laying bits of the fun, fuzzy yarn on top of the merino.  Sometimes this yarn will adhere to wool; sometimes not.  If not, I'll end up removing it partway throught the felting process.  I know that whatever happens, this wrap will be lovely.  

Time to felt.

Ladies who lunch ... learn

Lunchtime conversation with much laughter and many tangents. Tangents that lead to self-discovery. Or if not actual discovery, a putting together of pieces in a way I hadn't done before.

Did I know I really wanted four completely unrelated career paths? It's not that I haven't achieved some level of success or personal satisfaction already from each. But how to take any one of them further? If not at the same time, how do I know which one(s) to begin with? Two pieces have received priority attention from me in the past decade: Woolynns and yoga. But I only sing once a year these days, if that. And my yearly foray into directing makes me itchy for more. Big changes are on the horizon. As the tectonic plates shift, maybe I can find a new balance, or a new plate to stand on. Or I could try spinning more plates at once (but now I've mixed too many metaphors.) Supposedly I should do one thing and do it well, but I want to do four things really well. (stamp foot here)

Woolynns is the name of my business and this blog, and it is here I feel my most creative. I see seamless clothing in my head and a gallery is adding my scarves and purses next week. I have two scarves laid out ready to roll (literally). I have a custom piece to begin. Another fiber artist's work has pushed me out of my comfort zone to begin experimenting with size. My next house will just have to have a bigger studio space for all this expansion into larger felting. The prospect is so exciting to me, I feel somewhat uncontained, and somewhat aghast at what I think I'll be undertaking.

YogaMom is the title I gave myself when my first child was born and I was teaching yoga. I had left performing and felt a need for a job title. It fit. That yoga part of myself is where I feel my most accomplished. I have been teaching for 14 years now. I have trained other teachers. I work with alignment and energy, injury, prenatal and post-partum yoga. I feel like I have so much to share and can never fit everything into one class, one weekend workshop, one private session. I love learning from those who profess to be my students. I want a yoga yurt with heat for the winter where I can practice, teach classes, work with private therapeutic clients.

Performing. I quit doing that professionally in 1998. It wasn't the hardest choice. I had a baby. I was pretty cranky even when I had theatre jobs. As scary as it was to not be a performer, it was actually calmer. I had had a good run that included many high points over a decade of work. People who knew me as a child still wonder if I miss dancing. But I was shedding that side of me even back in my performing days. My body was never made to dance at the level I had asked it to perform. (I'm dealing with the fallout from that every day now.) But if I could get my voice back in shape, if I could work with a great pianist and start singing, a happier part of my performing self might return. Just chanting at the end of a yoga class reminds me of that side of me, making me long for more notes, more syllables, more instruments.

And then the surprising opportunity of directing came along. I had so many good directors over the years. Some were high school teachers, some were fellow college students, some were directors for whom I worked, some taught classes for professionals. I also had some terrible ones; directors who were getting paid to do this. I didn't think I was a director when I got asked to help with Shakespeare for 8th graders. But when I saw how something I offered could make even a bad performance look better, something I offered could bring out more from the child who coasted on talent, when I realized I could get a good performance out of children who wished they didn't have to do this play, well, it made me less tolerant of poor play productions where the children all wanted to be there and wanted to be pushed to do better work. If I could get so much from students who were required to be in the show, why wasn't I doing this more? This one would require certification or even a degree. I would need to learn pedagogy (rehearsing a play is not teaching acting classes). It might require doing it to the exclusion of all else.

Hmmmm...

Maybe I shouldn't meet good friends for lunch anymore. It makes me think big thoughts.

Going Deep into the Roving

Just when I think I'm out of ideas, new pictures and colors and designs pop into my head. I may have to head into clothing to see these creations come in to being. I've worked three dimensionally before. The mental work of understanding seamless purses that first workshop --- there's a front and a back to the inside, and a front and a back to the outside? That no longer phases me so much. What pulls me up short now is should I actually re-invent the wheel or do I do a little research into techniques first?

Photos soon of recent creations will be followed by tales from this mysterious path that is pulling me. Fiber and color and design and function will collide brilliantly, I hope. If not, as Mark says, someone will like it.

~ LS