Week 29 - The Keeper of the Cottons

I found this little dragon about to take a nose dive into my jar of thread offcuts.
After swooshing delightedly around the jar, she climbed out and appointed herself the Keeper of the Cottons.



I do hope I won't have to ask permission to use my threads, she seems to have claimed them all.







The Keeper was first sewn in felt, then merino wool was needlefelted onto her body and wet-felted to help mat it together.  Her wings were wet felted then mohair was needlefelted onto the wings and spine.
She also received some trim from the thread offcut jar, which is probably why she enjoyed diving into it.

Week 26 - Winterfest the felt dragon

Why, because Winter Is Coming and we all need a warm dragon to snuggle up to.

I played around with a new dragon pattern, hand sewn in felt, then covered in merino wool.
First  a little needlefelting to attach the wool then finished by wet felting.
The wings were wet felted and attached later.

Week 20 - Mikey, the Michaelmas Dragon

Doing a little dragon surfing I came across a blogger named Angela who keeps the blog Rhythm of the Home where she kindly gives a free pattern for a Michaelmas Dragon.

Now, my religious inclinations being what they are, I had no idea what Michaelmas was or why it required a dragon.

Angela gives a little background on her page indicating that in medieval times Michaelmas celebrated the turning of the seasons especially harvest time in September. (autumn in the north which makes it just right for the present time in the southern hemisphere)
mmm. OK ....that sounds good.....then I did a little further digging and found that it didn't take long for "the other lot" to cotton on and St. Michael the Archangel got into the act with his earthly representative St. George... and we all know what St. George was famous for!

Nasty piece of work, that George..... I've no sympathy for any dragonslayers.



I created some fabric with my needlefelt machine, layering sheer pieces and wool scraps onto a  commercial felt background.
It proved not to be the best back to use as the needles chewed into the fabric and I wasn't able to sew a good seam without tearing it.
I backed the fabric with an iron on interfacing to give some stability then cut out the pattern.



I joined the pieces by hand with a blanket stitch.







AAARGH - when I went back to get the link to Angela's blog, I suddenly realised I'd forgotten to give him wings!! 

I'll have to add them later or Mikey will have no way of escaping from nasty George.

Week 9 - Bibbul-mun, part 3

PART 3 - The naming of Bibbulmun

 

 

I was going to name him Balingup after a town in Western Australia famous (or infamous) for the magic mushrooms that grow in the forest around the town. 

We drove through Balingup in 2005 on our way back from Walpole and Pemberton to Perth (but didn’t stop for mushrooms)

Then I read that there is a Bibbulmun Walking Track which passes along Balingup Brook, then meanders to the south through the Balingup Golden Valley Tree Park, the track is well known internationally and quite a challenge.

I liked the sound of Bibbulmun but wasn’t sure about using the name as it had been the name of an aboriginal tribe and it seemed a little frivolous to bestow it on my dragon.

I did a little more research on the Bibbulmun people and came across their history which had been written up by Daisy Bates (1863 -1951) who had been an anthropologist and welfare worker among the Aboriginals.

Her study of the Bibbulmun people was recorded in her book The Passing of the Aboriginal – the chapter can be read here 

 I found her story to be very moving, she states the “The first landing of the white man was the beginning of the end.”   

Could I then equate fact and fiction and compare this to the beginning and end of dragons. 

In honour of both a vanished people and vanished creatures I named my dragon Bibbul-mun.

 

The Bibbulmun Track stretches nearly 1000kms through jarrah, marri, wandoo, karri and tingle forests, interspersed with sections of coastal peppermint and heathlands.  It traverses some of the most beautiful and wild areas of the south west of Western Australia………

……… imagine how many dragons are hiding there!

Week 9 - Bibbul-mun, part 2

PART 2 - The Transforming of Bibbul-mun

First I removed the mushroom from the base – the base now took on the appearance of a pair of wings –hmmm, put that aside for later….

 

I wet felted several shapes, none of which turned out to be right, so finished by needlefelting clumps of wool as I went along.

 

 

I used an undyed scap wool for the base to conserve my coloured wool. Sometimes this can be a false economy as you then have to cover the white but as this was quite large I thought it worth doing.

 

The legs were formed over wire which was then inserted into the wool body and more wool needlefelted around the join for stability, again not completely successful, the legs are still a bit wobbly even after adding all the embroidery.

 

The arms were formed on one piece of wire inserted all the way through the body, this whole process has been a steep learning curve of what not to do, as the arms (naturally) both moved together – well, duh Erica, what did you expect!  Any future dragons requiring an armature will be built up over the armature and not the other way round!

 

 

 

Not sure what he looks like here – I keep thinking of the Adipose from Dr. Who…..

 

The embroidery was added next, and this is something I could have kept adding to for weeks, I may go back and do more later.  

Then the “mushroom” neck and head were added, I decided not to try to make the head look any more dragonlike, or to emphasize the eyes as I had with Cordelia – it would detract from his camouflage and ability to hide himself!  

on to part 3

Week 9 - Bibbul-mun, Part 1

Sometimes my imagination takes me to strange places, and when I return I try to recreate those places in my needlework.

This was to be a fantasy garden with magical mushrooms (no, no, not THOSE ones....) 

The work started as a piece of wet felting for the base and the cap. The stem of the mushroom was made by needlefelting some firmly bundled wool which was then attached to the base using a felting needle.  The cap was attached the same way.   
As the cap was embroidered it became too heavy to hold up on its own so I wired the rim.

 

 

 

 

 

The more I embroidered and embellished I  began to catch glimpses of a dragon face in the mushroom cap.

 

These next pictures look like a different piece but they are the same, my camera settings altered the colour slightly in the daylight.

 

 

 Hope this short video doesn’t make you dizzy, I was holding the camera in one hand and twirling the lazy susan with the other.

 

As you can see it was now developing a distinctly dragonish look.

 

 

There is a theory that dragons still live amongst us, but man has not always been kind to them, so they have learnt to hide from our sight. 

Sometimes we will catch a glimpse of something dragon-like, something that stops us in our tracks and makes us wonder – “did I just see a dragon”

What if this were a real dragon hiding in the garden, camouflaged amongst the flowers and fungi.

It was time to dismantle the mushroom and wonder if I could coax the dragon to reveal himself.

go to part 2

Week 6 - Spike the punk dragon

At the hairdressers this week I met Spike who was having his pink mohawk dyed.   

 

He decided to come home with me and is now in the living room checking out my old record collection...he keeps singing "God Save the Queen" and mumbling about The Clash and something about calling London ....

 

 

 

Spike started off as a test for a pattern I had drawn up.

I made him by hand in felt but he looked a little boring (sorry I forgot to photograph that stage), so I started to wonder about needle felting wool onto his body.

The needle felt did not 'grip' very well, so I finished up wet felting him and then adding the decorative yarn trims with the felting needle.

This is Spike after his wet felting:

 

 

 

What If Wednesday

I haven't had a What if for a few weeks so here's a double helping.

What if I take a piece of terylene curtaining fabric with embroidered flowers and needle felt through it -
On the front the embroidered threads just chopped up, but I liked this piece best - worked from the back of the fabric the embroidery merged nicely as the wool pushed through to the front of the fabric, and framed the one flower that was not felted.



and here is a very easy way of adding texture to paper,
paint a layer of gesso onto paper then rubber stamp into the still wet gesso.
Best with a large stamp without too much fine detail, here I used stamps that I had carved into erasers.

Betty in needlefelt

Betty the bully, originally uploaded by gramarye.

I haven't touched my needlefelt for about a year, so when daughter wanted me to make a needlefelt portrait of her dog, Betty, I wasn't sure if I could do it. But it was just like riding a bike, (so they tell me, I never mastered bike riding).

I think I captured the hangdog expression.

She's very worried in this photo, it's a windy day and she doesn't like wind because the house creaks and doors bang on their own.

more needlefelting

Here's my little girl again with her bits coloured,

and a close up of the face, it was hard to believe that Birgitte's faces were not painted, but there is no paint used any where, all the features are added with coloured wool.


So then I had to start another figure straight away, and the only wool I had that would needle was some rubbishy stuff I'd bought years ago from Bendigo mills to use as stuffing, it didn't work out quite as well as the corriedale but I don't mind my little blue man