To Do List

- 16 felted scarves (check)

- 26 button pins (check)

- 6 bead crocheted grape pins (check)

- 3 ... (and counting) felt beaded necklaces that have been embellished with more beads (check)

- and (for those of you who don't know me) 6 sugar skull pendants are making their first ever public debut ! (ch...eh almost)

The production list is thinning out, but I cannot WAIT to have these things en route to Boston.  Once they are out of my house I can begin my next series/projects:

- Birthday gifts

- A sugar skull ring for Shirley (who so kindly featured me on a blog she writes for: http://thesourmashblog.com/2011/12/06/what-the-felt/)

- A blue and black beaded necklace for me

- A scarf for me

- Personal thought collection and reflection

- See several exhibits at The American Natural History Museum (worlds largest diamonds - oohhh aaahhh), the MAD Museum (worlds most fascinating jewelry ... my unofficial title for the museum's typical collections), Brooklyn Museum (most surprising museum, I always come across pieces I unknowingly look for) and explore galleries in Chelsea (either gawking or mocking art that has entered the realm of the high-ceiling, white wall, thick rimmed glasses bored and aloof gallery clerk Chelsea gallery)

- Plan some trips

- Plan more trips

Aaaand now some images I've been looking at:

Hisano Takei creates architectural felted neck pieces:  

I absolutely adore her use of ivory-white wool in order to focus on one area - structure.

I love Julie Christie's necklace here: 

I think it would be suuuuuper interesting to create one using long felted tube shaped beads.

This is me in my room:

I know I don't look thrilled but that's probably because I am tired ... or the fact that I've been told I look (excuse my french) "bitchy"/angry (people constantly ask me if I'm "okay" - what's with that anyway?) I am absolutely OBSESSED with the texture and color of this scarf and I cannot wait for it to be exhibited and hopefully enjoyed by someone else as much as I have !

Here is a back view:

and side view:

(I apologize for the poor resolution of my Photobooth pictures)

Stick Pins

So I finally got around to making pins for my neck pieces:

I am currently attaching them to stick pins, the kind you would put in a hat.  The are for closures on my pieces and just pins.  

Frances Elvira Alessio

Just for a minute I would like to remember and honor my truly and literally Great Aunt Fran.

(A dress she designed, drafted and sewed herself.)

Her hospitality, honesty, respect, passion, positivity and creativity were infectious.  Her vivaciousness has greatly impacted my life and the lives of those around her.

Each year I was lucky enough to celebrate a Jewtalian Chrismakkuh.  We'd shamelessly prepare to loosen our buckles and pant buttons, ready to indulge in the Italian Christmas Eve classic - festa dei sette pesci (feast of the seven fishes).  The grandness of her meals and artistry in her water colors, sculptures or ceramics have inspired my work.  Especially her stuffed artichokes.

Senior year of high school I made a 4 ft by 6 ft painting of artichokes that currently resides on my diningroom table:

My Aunt Fran was as much a teacher as she was a student.  From Monet to Pavarotti, she appreciated all things creative and beautiful art or music.  

"Your creative ability is awesome ! 

We admire you so much !!!"

- an excerpt from the last card she ever made and sent me

The funny part is, I've always said the same about her.

I am greatly humbled by her and will certainly continue to create, keeping in mind her ability to amplify anything ordinary.

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Last Wednesday we officially shifted away from the clement November/December weather.
Thus ensues my winter hibernation.  And also fantasies of the ultimate comfort den:

The above image is an interior created by Dana Barnes, a fiber artist, sculptor, textile and interior designer. Her designs are fabricated entirely of felt.  The circular rug in the center is her interpretation of the classic Americana braided rug.  It is braided wool roving.  After braiding the roving she sticks the piece in the washing machine - the hot water and movement felts the wool.  The washing machine technique works for larger pieces, or if you want to shrink your wool sweaters to look like baby clothes.  Pieces like my scarves are delicate and the intensity of a washing machine may over felt the wool.  This means that your two foot by six foot piece of pre felt (which already shrinks up to 30% once you finish it off) may become the size of a piece of paper.

The white sheet with what looks like stacked white discs is also felt.  The wool probably came in batting form - another raw form of wool before you felt it - instead of roving.  The flat white rug is just that, a felted rug.  The disks are actually one piece.  Their function? Oh, you know, just being the greatest lounge for reading a book or magazine, taking a nap or watching a movie.  

More braided roving-rugs and also super sized granny squares (made using the washing machine technique).  The wall hanging is wool that was felted and embossed with circles.  Fun fact, wool has memory. If you dry felt over a form or leave stitches to hold pleats while it dries, the wool will retain that shape.  The embossed circles were created by drying the wool over round forms.  On the table is another type of braided rug, a piece of felt that was cut and loosely woven together to give it a braided texture.  

This photo, of Dana Barnes' Tribecca loft/studio, appeared in The New York Times in May, 2010.  The granny squares caught my attention.  I love the Japanese inspired dining area using massive granny squares as floor pillows.  And the vibrant cushions against exposed brick, raw wood furnishings, and a neutral background.

Felt is fashion meets function.  Really.

Dana Barnes creates environments that use the organic integrity of wool to enhance the sleek modernity of a New York apartment.  Felt is a way to incorporate textural and colorful elements without any frills.

My ultimate winter comfort den? You're pretty much looking at it - from floor to ceiling, a felted nest.

Summercamp

I spent five years, well, summers at sleep-away camp.  Today I came across a few images of "bunk rooms."  It would have been nice if the bunks looked anything like this:

On a side note - check out that antler chandelier.

Puppetry, Miniature props, Sets

I just saw The Muppets. Before the movie even started a 10 minute long preview of a fourth Toy Story set The Muppets up for being a heartfelt piece of nostalgia.  Personally, they [Toy Story] had me at the last one.  But I am not a movie critic and this is not a film oriented blog, so bear with me I'm getting to my point.  

I was introduced to Muppets on Sesame Street starring our pals Elmo, Bert and Ernie and Big Bird.  I really never thought some of their comrades were over half a century old.  But the variety hour aesthetic certainly put things into perspective, that perspective being Miss Piggy and Kermit are nostalgic characters from generations other than my own.  

But there's more.  

My infant memory centralized on fun looking toys and/or the hard-hitting problems of brushing my teeth, tying my shoes, getting into a chair, reaching for cereal.  I never noticed or even appreciated Jim Henson's incredibly detailed puppets or skilled puppeteers manipulating their dialogue like a ventriloquist.

The first detail I noticed were the pieces of foam used for snouts like "The Great Gonzo's," which appears to be carved, painted foam:

His eyelids and mouth also look like they could be cut, painted foam.

The use of flocking to create Miss Piggy and the detail of her costumes:

The imitation Miss Piggy Chanel suit.

Her netted cocktail hat.

For promotional purposes, designers were even dressing Miss Piggy in their collections.

Kermit's head is manipulated by a hand.  

(just never thought about it.):

His body was initially a recycled coat, his eyes are toys cut in half, and he has a pretty damn cool collar (made from synthetic fleece).  

Can I mention again that every authentic emotion is created with someones hand?

Lastly, the hair as seen on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem:

(Especially Animal, Zoot and Janice's Hair)

Janice on guitar featuring string hair:

Zoot on Sax featuring synthetic hair:

And my personal favorite, Animal, on drums featuring feather hair:

(Look familiar ladies with feathers in their hair? Remember, Animal did it first)

The Muppets resonated with me in more than one way.  It was truly inspiring to study the details and nuances that mold these characters.

(puppetry, miniature props, sets.)

Crafternoon

white, ginger, pear tea and this soundtrack:

My idea of an opportune moment for documentation comes 20 minutes before I've got to leave

(whew, longest title ever)

Today, 20 minutes before leaving for work, I found my self staring at my latest endeavor - inverted pleats in a large felted shrug.  I folded one of my wider, thicker shrugs in half and noticed that the back of the neck had way to much fabric, it wasn't contorting to the curves of the neck and shoulders.  Hence my solution - pleats.

I proudly present to you some loosely documented works:

you can't really see the pleats, but they're there and you can see by the way the fabric moves in the back.

Do the above images look familiar? Yes, yes they do because it's my friend the Sea Anemone !

This started out as one sheet, I cut it and stitched it together to create this texture.

Bougainvillea inspired pins.

A box o' beads their purpose - to be determined

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I am sipping my coffee when I should begin laying out felt for beads.  But today I used one of my favorite kitchen utensils the "froth-er," "Latte Whip" or as my wonderful Aunt Fran would say, "zoom zoom."  Slow sipping it is in order, so I embark on a brief indulgence of the internet.

Today's journey - collars.

After my favorite Saturday past time - Dim Sum, I made my way up Broadway.  If not for my stomach, which had more than reached capacity, I would have been shoving my way up those city streets.  What caught my eye was actually in the window of a store I would have absolutely overlooked otherwise - I have no need for clubbing outfits, sequined or bedazzled clothing, and booty shorts year round.  It was this unusually demure mannequin and even more so, incredible feathered collar:

As stated in a previous entry, lately I have been thinking a lot about closures.  I don't want to use anything that is readily available but having spent so much time designing scarves, I forgot to think about closures.   My image was to create scarves that are more like collars, and I think many of them would benefit from a closure for embellishment.  

(I would have taken a more detailed picture however, the zaftig, camouflaged clad gentlemen working in the store was grilling me from the window hence the click and run.)

This shrug has a "hook and eye" type closure, where both are made from a satin fabric in a color similar to the feathers...interesting...

And also Chanel.  I was looking at the 2009 collection and found these neckpieces fascinating:

Progress Report

Today was a long, slow day at work.  I did, however, have a chance to work on some sketches for my necklace.  Here are some very rough sketches of said necklace:

Below is a sketch from over the summer, but it is something I would like to revisit.  I have been developing grape inspired pins and stayed true to the brown stem and green or purple grape color scheme.  Ever since my last review board in May, I had been talking about using atypical colors in my pieces and yet have steered away from it.  I finally bit the bullet and cut my pre-felt to create a ruffled collar scarf.  It's now or never baby and it's time to make some blue and white grapes ! ... Well maybe not those colors but certainly something other than purple and green.

Closures, closures, closures.  Thinking a lot about closures.

Bike Rides and Thigh Highs

Nearly 70 degrees and it's almost December? Don't mind if I do.  This morning I left the house sweaterless and pantless ... well, I wore bike shorts and thigh highs.  Absolutely foolproof, I wasn't even cold and discounted any curious glances.  I took a casual ride through midtown (that's sarcasm by the way) to stock up on all kinds of goodies from my favorite bead store BeadsWorld - where I refrained as best I could from buying things I didn't need.  You could not imagine the will power involved when put infront of an entire store neatly packaged and color coordinated.  I am thinking about a few things:

- bead embellishments

- bead crocheted bracelets

- a necklace for myself. 

I recently got a haircut and collected a handful of images of 1960's babes to give my hairdresser a reference point.  Many images were the classic black and white photographs of chicks with their hair in a perfect bouffant or silky flouncing waves, but I was especially drawn to the color photographs.  Perhaps it is my affinity for everything mustard yellow, but many of the color photos have this great warm/yellowish tint to them.  It's kind of like the camera has a filter that affects colors the way brown tinted sunglasses do.  I don't know about you, but when I put on brown sunglasses the entire world around me is amplified with brown sunglass filter, it is warmer, yellower and best of all, I look tanner.  I may also be attracted to the vintage photograph/brown sunglass filter because that hue of color has influenced many of my color choices.  So, I'm looking at all these images from the '60s and came across these incredible archives of photos.   

These images were particularly inspiring:
  

I love the contrast of wood beads with metal chain.  It is the classic cliche art school juxtaposition(so over that word) of natural and man made.  I will be exchanging wood beads for felted beads and chain something I have not yet worked with for my personal pieces.

There is not much to say except that her necklace is absolutely out of control.  I love the texture and the layers, and the whole necklace meets collar meets body art adornment.  For a while I have been flirting with the idea of putting my sewing skills back to work and creating simple garments to accent my neckpieces.  Perhaps this is my kick in the butt? Maybe, maybe not but it most certainly gives me something to think about.

What The Felt

You may, or may not, have been wondering about the origins of "whatthefelt." Well, its punny and a tangent of my inner dialogue.  If that didn't do it for you, here is an alternative answer.  I make felted things:

- Scarves 

- Shawls

- Shrugs

- Neckpieces

-Necklaces

- Pins

- Pendants 

... you're all smart people, you get it.

Over the summer I was presented with the opportunity to have my own exhibition and trunk show at the Cambridge Artists Cooperative in Cambridge, MA: /http://cambridgeartistscoop.com/

This is incredibly exciting but, of course, requires a lot of work as I needed 18 new pieces additional.  So I have spent a lot of time felting, and complaining about my back, and felting, and complaining about time, and objectively looking at my work and asking myself "what is that?" But after at least 8 hour days 5 or 6 days a week making, hanging, kvetching, I think I need to share the preliminary stages.  Below is a series self promotional photos, of fancy felted works in-process (you can also view my site at www.HannaZien.com for images of my larger more experimental pieces):

Before I start anything, I start with colors.  Meet my friends - brown (Bitter Chocolate), blue (Teal), tan (Buff) and blueish-greenish-grayish (Dusty Green) merino wool roving (complements to http://www.mielkesfarm.com/).  This is also a glamor shot of my impromptu studio space/living room take over.  Visible here is my work table covered with pool covering.  The pool covering has bumps on it like bubble wrap, these bubbles massage the wool roving fibers so that they stick together creating what will become pre-felt.

This was an experiment I am still figuring out the answer to.  The photo represents layers of cross hatched merino wool - you have to lay out 3 layers, I start with one vertical, one horizontal, and a third vertical because I like the way the colors blend together when they are laid out vertically.  Once you've finished laying out all your wool you cover it with nylon fabric and drench it with soapy luke warm to hot water and roll it back and forth 3 times for 9 minutes each.  I call this piece my sea anemone. 

A friend to my sea anemone, this scarf pretty much uses the colors that make me happiest.  In my rolling process I try to roll as many scarves as possible.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves and make believe I have a factory like operation here, that number is usually 2 since you need to account for the wool shrinking when it is finished off.

Once you have drenched these bad boys with soapy warm water, you unroll them, take the nylon covering off, and flip them over.  Then you repeat the process of nylon cover on, soapy warm water all over it, roll it up, un roll, flip, repeat.  Like I mentioned earlier - you repeat this process 3 times.

If you are disappointed that my sea anemone and friend are not shown on the above image, forgive me, but I just had to leave an air of mystery! Instead this is an example of 2 other pre-felted scarves.  They are drying.

Photos of the finished pieces will eventually be shown, in the mean time I hope to build up hype by leaving you in suspense ! ... honestly though, I just don't have adequate photographs of the finished pieces.

Until next time ! 

You've gotta learn to walk before you can run

Naturally, there will be a lull between what will become anticipated witty banter between myself and you kind, dedicated readers of my blog.  Forgive me, as I enter the unknown territory of the interweb and search tirelessly for the gripping news of what I felt today.

Today I am feeling rather ill.  I sound somewhat like a duck, my head feels as airy as a blimp while simultaneously seeming to weigh 300 pounds, and I am tired...kinda, so, so very kinda tired.  This brings me back to Thanksgiving day.  It's barely 3 pm and lethargically laying out on the oversized "L" shaped couch are children of all ages, men and women watching the evening football game.  Perhaps it was sitting in a vehicle for an hour or two that put us to sleep, or the myriad of edibles presented before dinner time, or for those of age the uncharacteristically early consumed glasses of adult beverages, but it seemed all of us were tired....or chatting loudly in the kitchen.  My father, who I consider to be an enthusiast of sorts when it comes to vocabulary, observed that the energy in the room was "somnambulant."

"sub what?" I asked.

"Somnambulant - feeling, looking, being tired... lethargic basically."

Anyway, today was a long, somnambulant day and frankly all I want to do is take Nyquil and fall asleep.  Having no Nyquil and not feeling that tired, however, hinders this plan.  The good news is that on these here mustard colored pages, I actively integrate and try to remember one of Howard's many words.

Dearest future readers of my blog, you are welcome for the aforementioned vital information for your every day life (yes that was an "All That" when it was good reference) and now I must be signing off to tend to some more tea and water.  Next time I vow to return with pretty pictures instead of (not-so)senseless(to me) drivel.

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"I'd like to write something that comes from things the way wine comes from grapes."

 - Walter Benjamin