Saturday 17 April 2010

My New Toy.

I have been intrigued by embellishing/dry felting for some time and seem some lovely work done by other people. Last week I took the plunge and bought a machine never having met one before and have had a great time felting small pieces of knitting on it, prior to adding wisps of fleece and wool tops. Today was only the second time I have used it and I am amazed at how easy it has been to adapt from using a sewing machine to working on the embellisher.
I love the texture of these three pieces. They have a look of gardens and plant growth to them, though the colours of the bottom piece are all wrong for that theme. I am still thinking about what to make with them and so far think they will be mounted on artists canvases and possibly become little landscapes.

These three are quite smooth by comparison and have quite a different character.


These are different again. It's fascinating to see the variation made by using a different type of yarn. All the colours are stronger than they appear in these photos - I really must get my camera adjusted to give more accurate colouring. I think I would like to incorporate appliqued shapes or hand or machine stitched shapes - perhaps leaves - in the foreground. I need to work things out in my mind and on paper before going much further. Don't watch this space in case things don't work out!!



14 comments:

Carol Q said...

I'm going to sound really ignorant here heather and admit that I'm really not at all sure what an embellisher does or what it's for although I know one of my close friends is DESPERATE for one! LOL. I've better go off and do some research.

Doreen G said...

Your life won't be the same again Heather.
Can I suggest that you cut out some shapes in felt and then place them on the reverse side of a square then embellish over it.
You will be intrigued at the results.
Thanks for dropping by and leaving your much appreciated comments.

Maggi said...

Oh dear Heather, what have you let yourself in for. There is so much the embellisher can do. Your initial results are lovely and are just crying out for some stitching. I can see the gardens too.

chrissythreads said...

You'll have such fun heather. Most of my current work for the degree has been done using fabric created by the embellisher. Try anything and everything, you'll be amazed what results can be achieved and you'll soon learn what works and what doesn't. I've even embellished into fine metal fabric, but it does tend to blunt the needles so I now keep a set esp. for this. Once you get going yo can produce metres of fabric from combining fibres, threads and various soft fabrics which give great surfaces to stitch into. Have a great time.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Watch your fingers Heather, we don't want a photograph of them embellished. I have a firned with one and I must say they do create a nice effect.

Heather said...

Thankyou for the tips Doreen and Chrissythreads. I've been very good today and done quite a bit of gardening first and am about to start 'playing' again.
Carol - an embellisher meshes various yarns and fabrics together to create a new piece of fabric by stabbing the fibres together with it's barbed needles. The machine looks like a sewing machine but has no thread at all so the needles have no eyes - just wicked little barbs which create the almost feltlike new fabric and there are five of them in a cluster. Luckily there is a good finger guard on mine!

Julie said...

You'll have great fun with the Embellisher Heather and I'll look forward to seeing how you get on. The knitted pieces are beautiful colours and will look wonderful with some stitching. Have fun!

Maureen said...

Well done for going for it Heather, I'm sure you'll love it, there is so much you can do with it.

Angela said...

Thanks for sharing your embellisher experiments. I've wanted one for ages. Maybe this year will be the year I'll take the plunge too :)

Unknown said...

Have fun experimenting heather, I don't use mine nearly enough after being desperate to own one :)
Hope you are feeling better now and yea it does leave you feeling rough for quite a while

Anonymous said...

You will have so much fun with it Heather. I have the same model and I find it so easy to use and there's not much can go wrong with it.Lucky, me being a technophobe. Its always a good idea to have spare needles though. I got my needle unit converted so that if I break one needle, I only have to replace the one, rather than the whole unit which saves a bit of money. Have fun!

Val said...

Lucky ole you Heather - I've never been the same since I got mine - opened up a whole new world to me!
I reckon that middle piece in the first pic looks just like a bluebell wood - what do you think?

Jackie said...

You will have hours of fun with it heather. I've added you to the writing list.

Helen said...

Hi Heather, I know you're going to love this machine... and already you're doing wonderful samples in your most recent post. will look forward to seeing how you develop it all :)