Here are my first samples for my challenge piece. I have been very lazy, or simply procrastinating as these have been on my desk for a week or two. These are samples of the sky I am going to put in my piece, they are based on this photo.
The first sample is needlefelted.
The needle felting gives it a fluffy look. On the right, I simply felted onto cotton with the white and tried to get the bumpy bits right. On the left, I put down some pale blue before felting in a more loose manner. This looks more natural and gives the fluffy edges to the clouds.
My second sample is appliqued and thread painted.
I applied sheer organza in layers using my heat wand with a very fine point (and not a high heat). This allowed me to attach the sheer and to get all the fiddly little bits on this cloud.
Then I simply threadpainted in circles all over the clouds, going over the edges a little bit to make it a bit puffy. I can see in this picture, that I need to do a little more thread painting to merge the edges of the organza, but this is not as obvious in real life.
Anyway, here are my first samples. The reason I used this photo was that I liked all the little bits on the edge of the clouds. These are totally impossible to do at this scale with an embellishing machine, but the felted clouds are more natural. What do you all think? There will be a lot of other thread painting, so the felting would add more texture, but I do like the thread painted one.
I love them both Vicki! I love the fluffyness of the neddle felted clouds (is this a machine technique?) and I love the look of the threadpainted clouds, they are almost looking like lace.
ReplyDeleteYou say you put down some pale blue, I can see that. Did you use paint or a paintstick?
As you will understand, I’m a novice to all these techniques, so I would embrace some explanation!
Yes, the needle felting was with my embellishing machine. When I put down the pale blue, in the needle felted clouds, it was a pale blue wool roving. That is the fluffy wool,like cotton balls only wool. That is why it seems more fluffy, because the two colours of wool felted together. I suppose if I had done it by hand, with only one needle I could have been more accurate, but my machine has five needles and is much quicker. Myhusband also likes the felted one best. He said it looks more like real clouds so.....
ReplyDeleteBoth look great! I particularly like the movement and texture of the felted piece.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, 3 cheers for posting your progress! The thread painted one has great texture, but I like the fluffiness of the felted cloud on the right in your top example. You might try sort of combining the blue and white roving before felting and see what effect that gives.
ReplyDeletevery cool!
ReplyDeleteI like the felted piece and agree that it looks closer to the real thing. The second sample is ingenious and works well, but it's a little difficult to see the texture that you speak of. What is the background fabric? Have you ever printed on organza?
ReplyDeletethese are both fabulous - the felted is fluffier looking like everyone says, but I also really like the texture of the thread painted one. Judy's suggestion of maybe incorporating the two colours before felting intrigues me, but then I have no idea how to needle felt! I am so curious to see how the rest of your piece comes together.
ReplyDeleteYeah for you look how far you are already...personally I like the felted one the best although each one has its own added texture...you are way ahead of me.....but I do have a thought so I guess that is good...
ReplyDelete