Felting and Lutradur 2

Finally back to your tutorials, hopefully the routine will be correct next week.
As a refresher, we were working on a felted and embellished beach scene using lutradur

We have laid down the main elements and added felting.  In this tutorial we will add embroidery and beading.

I usually start at the top or the furthest away part of my scene.

Prior to embroidering, I test out the threads I have selected for suitability.

These were the first three threads I chose.  The first was a pale blue solid thread, the second was a tonal variegated with a short change, and the third was an ombre variegated.  I chose to use the ombre because the sky shades from dark to very light at the horizon and since the colour change was a long one, I could move from area to area depending on the shade.
I used a wide zig zag and moved side to side in a diagonal fashion.  This is very like stem stitch, which was covered in my machine embroidery stitch lessons.

You can see above how I moved around depending on the shade.
Next, I moved on to the sea.  I know the distant headland is next down, but it will be dealt with when I do the rocks, later.
Here is my colour sample for this section.

The first thread was a pale blue green, the second was an ombre variegated in blue green and the third was a white thread specked with  dots of other colours, which I tested to use in the wave tops.
Again, my choice was the ombre for the water, not because of any colour change in the water, but because it will give the water depth.

 I have used a straight stich in a wavy overlapping, back and forth manner, across the water.  This gives it both depth and texture.  Now for the frothy bits.

Still using a straight stitch and using the flecked white thread, I filled with  a variable granite stitch, and a bit of scribbly stippling thrown in.  I did not work over the grey and brown areas.  These will be done next in the next post, tomorrow and I will spend the evening  picking out the beads for the sandy area.

Good to be back!.

Felting and Lutradur

Today's project is a mini quilt collage which will be in two parts.  The project will use painted Lutradur or Rainbow spun, wool rovings or tops (these are unspun wool, dyed in a variety of colours, for use in felting and other fibre art), silk scraps and heavy interfacing to create the scene, then the scene will be added to with free motion embroidery and machine beading. The scene will be mounted on a framing fabric and then on a mini quilt.  The project is loosely based on a project in the book Fabulous Fabric art with Lutradur by Lesley Riley, which also has instructions for many other techniques with lutradur, including painting

 The picture above is the one I based the quilt on.

Above you can see a mock up using the photo, of how the quilt will be arranged.

Above is a tracing of the photo, and below are my patterns, which you can download here.

 The top picture is a simplified outline for the main pattern pieces, sky, water, foam and sand.  The coloured diagram below has the rocks marked in red, approximate placement for waves in green, and some grey under the foam, marked in blue.

I started with a piece of interfacing at least 2 inches larger than the pattern all 'round. and marked the dimensions of the scene.

I marked in the horizon line and painted in a blue sky, a little paler to the bottom.

Above I have traced the sand and sea on Rainbow spun (or you could use painted lutradur-technique is in Lesley's book).

Above I have pinned the sand and sea in place (you can use a glue stick for this step, but only a little glue)

Here I have traced the rock shapes and pinned them to scraps of silk.

Then arranged the rocks.  Glue them lightly when you are happy with the arrangement. 
The next step is felting.  I used an embellisher to felt in the horizon with grey wool tops, then filled in around the rocks with white tops and a bit of grey in the centre.  Finally I added some wisps of white for the wave in the midview.
Basically, all you are doing is using barbed needles to push the fibres of the wool into the backing fabric.  The silk pieces will also felt into the backing, so go over them as well.  The rainbow spun will not, so the more the silk and wool overlap the rainbow spun, the more stable you will make the rainbow spun.  I use only tiny bits of wool at a time, and hold it in place where I want it with a bamboo skewer, which I remove once I have lowered the needles into the wool.  I am no expert at felting, so if you need help, you will find some excellent tutorials here.

This is the first stage of our project.  Next time we will be doing some simple free motion embroidery to define the felting, which will look a little blurry at this stage, and some machine beading to further define the sand and rocks.  When the scene is finished, we will do the final mounting on the quilt.

In fibre art, every scrap is the threshold of a new discovery.