Swirl inspiration, needle felt style.

I have been inspired by the many colors and textures that one can get from needle felting with just yarn.

My first thought was that I could take scraps of handspun and create random swirls and colors with various yarns in a recognizable silhouettes. 

Note: Here I am felting on a 100%wool felt background with 100% non-superwash wool.

This was my first piece that I did yesterday. I tried to make the yarn go in unexpected directions, but kept the color changes in, almost, predictable places. I hoped in doing so, that it would catch peoples attention and make them really look at what was going on. Maybe it would cause the observer to stop and think.

Yes that orange really is that bright.

Using different thicknesses of yarn will create a 3D effect.

Just think of how many silhouettes that you could try! I tried this morning one of the most simple shapes, a circle. I choose a yarn that I have had for a while, some Schaefer Eliane. I won this at a knit-in-pubic day in Ithaca. Yes the colors really are that bright.

I started with a simple spiral, then I let the yarn go where it wanted for a while, as long as it stayed with in the confines of the circle. I am stabbing with a single felting needle with my right hand as my left hand guides the yarn. The felting needle is what will 'glue' the yarn onto the felt background.

This is where I cut the first time. All of that was one piece of yarn.

Then I started somewhat randomly filling in the shape. You can cut all you want while needle felting, you just have to make sure that you really secure the ends, as they have a tendency to fray out.

 The resulting piece reminds me of paisley.

The yarn is a thick and thin so there really is a lot of lovely texture.

 I am inspired to try more. What about different shades of the same color all swirled together? What about complementary colors twining around each other? What about combining classic color combinations and silhouettes together? Like a black and white penguin?

What do you think? Have I inspired you to try this? 

Catching up

I have so many ideas and photos from I have visited to show you. I still have more Áviala and this last weekend I went to Chincón for the very first time. I also have some new ideas on the crafting front to share, and I have done a lot of spinning for the Tour De Fleece (a fun international spinning activity). 

But today I am going to share some photos I took during my morning run and the thoughts I had during it. It is very hot in Madrid right now and it was already getting warm around 9:30 when I was out. The heat wave has no end in sight, and in a city where a/c is optional (even in homes) it can be a struggle to get through the hot afternoon. The best times of the day are early morning and late evening. At those times anyone who can is going to be in the park.

My thoughts this morning were that I still remember those times when I would google street viewed a European city to pretend that I lived there. I remember looking at photos of different European monuments and looking past the glorious buildings to the background, looking at the street, the traffic, the people to see what life was like. I wanted to see if I could pretend that I lived there.

Now that I have lived here over two years, the times when I look something here and experience its foreignness come less and less often. OK when I am on a medieval wall, that is a different story, but the commonplace scenes from my neighborhood, are just that now, common.

the playground fence in most Spanish playgrounds.

However, to this day, I still do not go through a park without that little thrill of knowing that I am in a foreign land.

Wide walkways with plenty of benches

Even the park right in front of my house. The park that I walk through, most times, to get to the metro station. The park where I go walking or jogging.

I call this "ode to the olive tree" (in the center ring)

I do not know why this is. Maybe it is because the plants are different, and the arrangement of them if different from American parks. Maybe it is because the parks are always full of people. I feel like parks are more used here.

Behold, the almighty olive!

Can you tell me the difference?

New shop and Needle felting kits

Now that it is July, I am done with my teaching job and have officially opened my own store!

The idea of the store began with the fact that Spain does not have as many fiber related craft stores as I would like it to.  So seeing this as an opportunity I thought about what I would do or make to fill this gap. I thought about dyeing wool and making batts to sell to the future spinners of Spain. And while I am learning the ways of the dye pot and I hope to sell hand dyed fiber soon, I was really excited about an idea that came to me one day in February.

One of my, not so secret, passions is needle felting. One of my favorite ways to needle felt is by "painting" with the fiber on a flat surface. When I first started needle felting I really liked the idea of a fiber painting for my wall. A piece of art that showcases both my skill and my love of wool. I am a completely self-taught needle-felter so when I first started painting with fiber I did not really know what I was doing. I found out that the flat technique takes less wool than sculpting with wool does, and it is easy to move and change position and thickness of the wool, i.e. it is hard to make mistakes that are not easily fixed.  One day (May 2010) it occurred to me that I could felt with yarn too. From there it was only a matter of time before I thought of using black yarn between brilliant patches of brightly colored felt and making something that seemed like stained glass or a mosaic.

I made this:

Fast forward to February 2013 where I am thinking what products to sell in my future shop. What would people want? Maybe there is a kit that I could offer that no one else has?

I  got out a Sharpie and some colored pencils and I set to work making three designs:

I pulled out my drumcarder and set to work creating the colors. All of the colors include lowlight, a highlight and, maybe, an unexpected complementary to really make the colors glow. I needed to capture the glowing/streaked look of stained glass.

I did the first test piece to make sure that the colors complemented each other, and the whole design really came through. 

Iris

Maybe you had noticed from the color pencil mock-up of the Poinsettia above that the original colors I chose for the "frame" did not work. It is the dark blue-brown that I chose for the frame here that really makes the red of the flower "pop".

Poinsettia 

Next came the instruction booklet. I wrote it up and sent it to some lovely testers, some of whom had never needle felted before. I had great feedback. The instructions have been tested, tech edited and is also available in Spanish!

Robin on a Branch

The next part was sourcing my materials for the kit. All of the materials for the painting are 100% wool. The background felt I was even able to source here in Madrid. The creation of the kit took some time and creativity. The hardest part was figuring how to stencil my design on the background! Also black non-superwash wool is surprisingly hard to find in Europe.

Finally my boxes arrived and the kits are ready to go.

One of my testers had a ton of ideas for more designs, and I recently finished two more based on her suggestions.

Bunny

Sunflowers

If you want to, you can follow my new store on Facebook where I share my process as well as other needle felting tips I find.

I have not forgotten about more pictures form Ávila, those will come soon.

Ávila - part one

I have been thinking about how it is a shame that we have not been to more of the "day trips" around Madrid. The weather is perfect right now, so I knew we had to go somewhere. There are so many day-trips from Madrid that we have not done, it was a little hard to decide. But in the end Ávila won.

An old wall with wild flowers

Ávila is a town North West of Madrid in Castilla y León. It is approximately 1.5 hours by train, or a little more then 2 hours (with a transfer) by Cercanias (the local Madrid train system). I convinced my husband to go on Friday. I figured less crowds, cheaper menús, and the weather was going to get hotter through the weekend.

What I think of as a California poppy

We have had an extra long Spring here in central Spain, and so there were still wild flowers and patches of green everywhere. Last year by this time everything had already been dry for at least a month. There were so many poppies that there would be fields of them on either side of the train. I could not take my eyes away from the scenery. Spain's countryside is so beautiful. 

Wild Geraniums!

A charming plaza

Ávila is so photogenic that this might be a four part blog series. We had a great time wandering around with out much of a plan and taking loads of beautiful photos. Ávila is full of churches as there is a cloister and a rich Catholic history. This next church you will see from several angles. I love it's old red-blonde bricks and it's shape.

San Pedro Church

Wait, what is this? Ok sure, there are strange lions licking urns, but there in the background is the reason we came to Ávila...a medieval wall. The old portion of the city is still completely surrounded by it's wall (something you can see on Google satellite view, if you wish. Click the link, go to the satellite view option, and start zooming into the Northwest portion of the city).

There in the distance is one of the main gates, la Puerta del Alcazar. In the foreground is a monument to soldiers (it did not say which war, at least that I saw). On the right are charming Spanish buildings. On the left is a new building and in the left hand corner? A Burger King, but don't worry that is about as American-ized as this town gets.

Charming winding streets

 They have kept most of the wall in very good repair. There are only some areas where it is crumbling. It is in such good repair, in fact, that you can walk along the top of most of it. 

A statue of Santa Teresa (the town's saint), at the base of the wall, surrounded by roses. 

In the next few posts you will see that I could not stop taking pictures of the wall...or of the mountains. You can see mountains in Madrid, that is, if there is not a building in the way.

I can not get enough of the Spanish tiled rooftops with the mountains in the distance. Another thing that we took of a lot of pictures of, were the Storks. Do you see them below? (click to enlarge). They like to nest on church/bell towers so there were always some circuling over head. If you see a big bird in one of my photos, it will be a Stork.

Next post: walking the wall.

Cañada

So there is this restaurant in my neighborhood called Cañada. It is a quaint no thrills restaurant. The type of Spanish restaurant where you picture that all of the regulars are used to sitting at there own table, everyday. There is a big screen TV playing either the news or the Simpsons that keeps the solo diners company.

In this place, the conversation stops when they hear English and resumes again when I switch to Spanish. The room is all white washed walls, dark wooden beams and a swath of mosaic tile on the wall. The food is good, cheap and comforting, and the staff are friendly. 

I have always translated the word "Cañada" into a more familiar "Canada" in my head. I laugh to myself or my husband about the name "The Canada", how silly is that?

 I do not know why I do this, maybe I am trying to find the familiar in the unfamiliar environs? I think that my husband has told me 100 times that "Cañada" means the "trail that sheep follow". You would think, given how obsessed with sheep I am, that I could remember that. So this last time we ate there (our second time dining there) I had my husband snap a few pictures of the goodies on the wall. I had forgotten that they were there too!

This next picture is of a "rueca" which means both distaff and spinning wheel in Spanish. It is a very traditional one. (I have seen one simular in museums here.) The wool is wrapped around that little bit of basket weave at the top end. They would have probably tucked the long end under their arm and spun with a hand held spindle on the oposite side.

Like in this painting I found on the internet (not in the restaurant).

Source

There are also other sheep-y items. Like one of this lovely hay forks that are carved out of one tree.

And hiding above the rueca? A shepherd's crook!

Speaking of sheep, I have been doing some dying and playing around with gradients. These are not as dark as I would like them to be. These are more water color than vibrant. Perhaps I should spin one, just to...test it out?