.: Clever Friends

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Clever Friends

We had our monthly meeting of Fiber Arts Alliance this week...always an inspiration. My friend Dee Dee recently took a workshop in Nuno felting at John C Campbell Folk Art School. Nuno felting is a form of wet felting using a very sheer fabric as a base whereby the fibers are felted into this base. The results are beautiful; they can be very dense or very gossamer in appearance depending on how much of the base fabric you want to show. Dee Dee covered the entire base piece of fabric on this piece - all kinds of colors and textures along with some tissue lame. Tissue lame will not felt into the base and needs to be covered with a very sheer fabric to hold it in place.

My friend Dot H has been playing with the Zentangle doodling and created these wonderful little samples, but the thing that caught my eye was the fastener she used on the back.

Dot is the "recycling" queen; she finds a use for many things so many of us would normally throw out. This hanging device is one of the plastic seals from things like liquid Coffee Mate. Dot says they work great on light weight pieces. She uses a white glue like Tacky to hold them in place.

I thought this was such a clever idea. After glueing and letting it dry, it can be hung using a nail or something similar.

Dot also showed me a blouse she was wearing - the closures were amazing!

She used an antique button and mounted it on a Chinese coin - how cool is that?

I loved this next piece - a cover made for a notebook or anything you want. Dot started with a piece of fusible web, laid some fabrics on top and using a press cloth, ironed in place. She then added more stuff, pressed and any area left unfilled (fusible exposed), were filled in with foils which works very well with a fusible web. The whole piece was covered with an iron on vinyl to protect, seal and make it "wipeable". A great idea.