Can't Contain my Excitement Anymore

http://www.cambridgeartistscoop.com/exhibits/index.php

At the moment this all feels pretty great but I gotta keep on making.

.black scarf.mustard yellow scarf.tan scarf.

And on a side note, I really like this wooly jacket:

An Iris Apfel original

Untitled

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.

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

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 !