Quince and Quire

Tutorial: Felted Pouch

If you would like to make a felted wool pouch, here is a simple tutorial. We have done this with kids at Outdoor Art Day for two years now, and it is always a popular project.

First, assemble your materials.

• Wool roving
• A smooth, fairly flat rock
• Liquid soap (we used Dr. Bronner's lavender)
• Scissors
• Nylon pantyhose
• A basin for water
• A washboard or woven mat

We used wool roving from Peace Fleece.

Choose a rock. Select your first color of roving.

 

 

Pull a long (8 to 12 inches is a good length to try), fairly thin piece of roving from the ball of wool. Wrap the rock up in your first color. Choose another color, if desired (or continue with another piece of the same color). Wrap your rock so that the fibers of the second piece of roving are perpendicular to the first piece of roving. This creates a stronger fabric. Continue wrapping with another one or two lengths of roving.

Snip off the toe of a pair of pantyhose. Put your roving-wrapped rock inside and tie a knot in the hose. This helps keep everything together as you begin to felt the wool around the rock.

Fill a basin with very warm water. Add some liquid soap. "Knead" your pantyhose-covered wool-wrapped rock in the water, rubbing it, turning it over, and using the water and soap to felt the fibers. (Two of the rocks in this picture have been taken out of their nylon covers already).

When you start to feel the wool forming a cohesive fabric around the rock, take it out of the water and rub it over a rough surface, such as this vintage washboard.

You can also rub your rock over a woven mat.

When fibers start poking through the nylon stocking, it's time to carefully snip off the hose and remove the felted rock. It may need more felting--either in the warm water, or on a rough surface--in order to make a smooth felt. You will be able to tell if more felting is needed.

When you are happy with the appearance and integrity of your felt, carefully take your scissors and snip around the top of the rock--go about 2/3 of the way. 

Remove the rock from the pouch. Rinse the pouch in clean water, shape it a bit if necessary, and let it air dry for a few days. 

We put a few of our favorite wee dolls inside the pouches, which all measure between three and four inches long by about two or three inches wide. My friend Katri made the pouch in the middle of the photo, and added a yarn necklace and sparkly button. My daughter made the two pouches in the bottom row. Mine are in the top row. 

I hope you have fun making these!

Tools: toulouse goose quill

I received this hand-cut goose quill with a broad-edge from Nancy Leavitt a few years back. Leavitt is a remarkable calligrapher and artist (and singer) who lives in Maine. In addition to being prodigiously talented, she is incredibly gracious. I have not been able to use this pen yet, because I enjoy the beauty of its craft so much. However, I just received my bottle of walnut crystals (to make walnut ink) from John Neal, so perhaps it's time . . .  

Resources and inspiration

As promised, a few of my favorite resources for supplies and inspiration, in some of my favorite genres. Today: book arts, with an emphasis on why these things might be relevant to you, the fab crafter who may not have ventured into this region of art yet.

Letter Arts Review is a quarterly publication that presents the best of contemporary lettering arts, as well as book reviews and scholarly articles on topics both modern and historic. It is always a delicious visual feast, and I learn from every issue. Anyone working with color and design will find this magazine useful--in other words, all of you! I think textile artists might find it surprisingly relevant, since many of you are also working to balance expression, narrative, and form. Also check out Bound & Lettered, which has nice how-to articles.

Painting for Calligraphers is a lovely book by an accomplished calligrapher and miniaturist who studied at Croydon School of Art and Crafts and who graduated from the Royal College of Art, London. It features sections on color theory, composition, materials, and methods; the many examples of paintings and manuscripts from past and present are reproduced in beautiful color photographs. I am showing you this book because I think it is applicable to craftspeople working in a variety of media: you don't need to be interested in calligraphy to find this book useful. 

John Neal, Bookseller is a wonderful resource for books and supplies related to lettering arts, bookbinding, and paper arts. I like the dappen dishes for mixing paint. The Schmincke gouache is lovely to work with. And of course, the book list is wonderful.

Paper & Ink Arts is another great source of supplies. I know many of you out there like to carve your own rubber stamps; check out their selection of books on the topic.

Talas offers an extensive line of supplies and tools for professional conservationists, bookbinders and the like. They also have things for people like me--that is, people with skills and talents who aren't necessarily making a living off said skills and talents. And sewists, take note! Not only do they offer nice Dutch linen sewing tape--meant for bookbinding but also great for ties on pencil rolls and such--they also have a textile storage kit! Those of you who make books probably know that good binders' board is essential. See some options here. 

And for those of you who were interested in my post on illuminated initial letters and historic manuscripts, a few books for the general reader to check out include A History of Illuminated Manuscripts and Medieval Craftsmen: Scribes and Illuminators, both by Christopher de Hamel. If you are really interested in the topic, the John Neal website has a long list of titles to explore. Any of the three suppliers that I mention above would be a good source for illumination tools and materials. If you are interested in lettering arts in general, but don't know where to start, try Foundations of Calligraphy, by Sheila Waters. 

Beautiful things: day two

Did you notice, as I did, that yesterday's post had many vines, leaves, and curves? I saw the trend once I posted the photos on my newly-established Flickr photostream. I guess it's no surprise really: those are the shapes that I find most intriguing. 

One of the photos from Flickr, which I did not put on the blog yesterday, made it to Apartment Therapy Los Angeles, in a post about book storage. You can see it here. 

Today I look at things in the wood shop and barn. Remember: pattern, texture, shape.

Tools and treasure

It could have been red, but not yellow. Probably not green, either. That blue is soft against the silver points. Each space worn smooth like a river bed. The dividers look like stilts. Shiny storks. You have to imagine the water beneath them. 

Yes, like spokes wrapped around a felloe. That's what I thought, too. My daughter found it in the junk drawer and arranged her earthy bouquet atop the spinning wheel.

The geologist's wife never tires of stones. Never tires of a smooth stone, caught by its own tail, swimming in its own net, little knot, little knot. It slips through the fingers. A smooth stone is a good thing on a tough day. Thank you, Margie. 

(Resurrection Fern will be having a shop update at 9am on the 10th of April for those searching for a covered stone).

Silver and Gold

This last picture is a preview of tomorrow's topic. See you then!

This seems to be a weekly topic

After another round in the basement, unpacking yet more boxes of art supplies, I realized that keeping one's supplies packed away leads to the problem of duplication. As in, how many bone folders does one person (who is not an avid bookbinder) need? Two, maybe three, if you consider a few sizes and if you go for a teflon bone folder in the mix. How many awls do you think a person needs? Probably one. How many fancy Japanese hole punches? One, especially since each punch comes with tips in a variety of sizes (seen on the bottom right).  

Naturally, I had to arrange my multitude of tools and admire how they look all in rows. This impulse to classify and organize feels a bit like something out of a natural history book--like an image of butterfly specimens, pinned to the page. Or maybe like a jewelry case. Or the cutlery drawer; all of those pointy things do look a bit sharp and sinister. And yet there is a warmth, too, from the natural materials; I find the wood and metal beautiful together, and the bone folders made from real bone bear the variations of a former life. The teflon pair look sallow in comparison. 

So, yes, I think this will be a weekly topic: tools. And does anyone need a bone folder? I have a few to spare.

Arranging the emotions

I arranged this tableau of tools and images over the weekend. The drawing is by my father. That interesting implement at the bottom is a seamstress's wheel. I need to reread Leonard Koren's Arranging Things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement in order to know exactly what I am trying to say here! 

Tomorrow I will be back with sunnier posts.

Old friends

I finally have a good space to keep my tools available--and out of little hands. I have a space to work where I can leave things in progress on my desk. The selection of items pictured above includes calligraphy and gilding supplies, an Italian box with quilling materials, a little handmade needle case, which I use for nib reservoirs, handmade brushes, and a booklet of antique Swiss floral decals. (Somehow decals are so much more elegant when they are both old and European). Everything is resting on a sheet of handmade Japanese-style paper that I made in grad school.

This is another step in reclaiming my life as an artist! Please celebrate with me!