A few months back I made a ferret sculpture out of wool and clay. In my opinion he is probably my best piece to date. Look at that face!
The whiskers are horse hair and fun to poke!
Trouble is he sold super quick and I wanted to use that momentum to make more awesome things but nothing measures up. I’ve done some good pieces since then but I am not in love with them like I was with this ferret. Perhaps that’s the way it needs to be? They can’t all be the best pieces ever, right? Haha I’m not sure… It could also be that as I improve I’m just getting harsher on myself. Here’s a look at some of the creations that came after my ferret:
What to you think?
I think it’s good to always be a little critical of your own work because it’s hard to improve if you’re not thinking about the things that can be improved. Buuutttt it is easy to overdo it and get way into your own head too.
It has been a long time since I needed to add a new page to my website but it’s finally happened! I’ve put together my first ever kit and I’m making the tutorial free to access for all. Click https://wishlessworld.com/kit-instructions-silly-doughnut/ to check it out!
Haha, if you had asked me a year ago what animal I expected to make the most of I would have probably guessed foxes, or perhaps red pandas. They generally do well for me but 2021 seems to be my year to do pigs! Lots and lots of them. Most are going to one lovely soul whose building a diorama type display. She was buying them one at a time but we’ve moved onto bulk orders – 5 more piggies that should finish her display. Haha I’m told she’ll be working on a hickory dickory dock scene next so maybe the last half of the year will be devoted to mice.
Life really does march on. Just one year ago I was accepted into the spring fair in Washington. The event boasts a long history and their fall version is one of the largest fairs in the country! Then of course, the virus happened and the show was cancelled.
Front View of Display of my work at Puyallup Spring Fair in Washington
I was surprised a few weeks ago to see an email from the NW Artisan Market (the fine art craft fair within the main fair) and they were trying to fill spots! I was shocked that they were moving forward with a fair already. From what my family who lives up there tell me Washington has been particularly restrictive because they were sort of ground zero for the pandemic here in the states. Anyway, the organizers created sort of a drive through fair experience with opportunities to get out of the car for a few of the activities. It sounded like a pretty solid plan to me so I booked a last minute flight and arranged it so my sister would house me for the 2 week event.
Display of my work Puyallup Spring Fair in Washington
They had a lovely set up inside the Artisan Market. It is so nice to do an event where I don’t have to lug around tables and selves myself. They gave me this display (I think it’s called a gondola) and for the first time ever at a show I had more than enough room to display everything. It was insane! I have an inventory of over 300 items right now. It is inspiring me to rethink my normal set up too.
Display of my work Puyallup Spring Fair in Washington – Close up on dragon scarves
I think I learned a lot from doing this show. It sadly, does not look like it will be profitable for me. There’s still 3 days to go at the time of writing this, so anything is possible, but I won’t be holding my breath. That’s ok though, as a business sometimes you have to take those risks, and even if I didn’t make money I did learn a lot of things. Plus hey, it’s still kind of impressive to say I sold at a state fair!
Back Side of my Display at the Puyallup Spring Fair in Washington
Strange how life goes! About a year ago today I made a little felted pig in preparation for doing the spring fair up in Washington state. Covid came along of course and that show was cancelled and that little pig sat in my Etsy shop for a long time. Eventually though he did sell and the buyer left a review stating she was looking for more pigs.
Rear end view of that first pig
I find it a bit strange she didn’t just message me directly so I sent her a little note asking for more details about her project. I learned she is doing a whole little display inside an old bird cage, a piggery if you will! Haha other than the round about communication she has been fun to work with and has been challenging my felting skills since she wanted more poses and now more breeds. She buys almost all my piggies now the week they get put online. So quick in fact, I decided to make this little blog post to show them off since linking back to my shop isn’t going to work if things are sold out. It’s a good problem to have. (and as a side note I do take commissions 😉 So without much further ado, below are some of the pig pics I was itching to share.
My journey into wet felting continues! I successfully made a dragon shawl as a commission and now I’m onto doing some for retail. Wet felting is such a relaxing thing, only down side is that it really dries out my hands. I know you can do it with dish gloves on but I like being able to feel the piece as I felt it.
This is the scarf I did on commission that started it all!
As for advertising so to speak, I’ve been posting pictures to my social media of course and I did have one random person get a bit upset that I called them “dragon” scarfs. Haha… it’s true the form is simplified to make them more wearable but I like to still think of them as dragons. I could switch to calling them winged serpents but that is a bit of a mouthful! We’ll see how I feel by my next show.
Here’s the rest of the scarves made so far.
In the mean time I really like the way I get to play with color on these guys and it’s rewarding to make something that has a practical use too! I’ve got the supplies for two more and I think after that I should wait until one sells before I go too crazy.
With spring around the corner I figured it would be time to needle felt some bunnies. My very first felted piece was a rabbit made from a kit I got in 2018. Since then my bunny game has definitely grown. They are one of my most popular items and as a result I seem to keep improving… haha making them even more popular.
Comparison between my early bunnies. The one on the left is my very first felted piece!
Sometimes I almost get annoyed that they are so popular! After all, there are so many animals out there that I haven’t felted yet. But in the end I do get to felt lots of creatures and you know what? Rabbits have an amazing amount of variety to them as well. Once I started to dive into different breeds and colors I realized there is still a lot to explore.
I wonder how they might evolve next! In the meantime happy spring everybody!
Learning to wet felt has been such a joy! When I needle felt an animal I think about things (almost too hard) because everything from the wire frame to the length of hair will need to be mostly proportionate. Don’t get me wrong, I get a lot of satisfaction from forming muscles and features out of wool but it’s not a playful process. On the flip side, when I’m laying down fiber for a we felt piece I can just play with the color, enjoy the softness of my materials. Haha, I’m at the point where I just want to make sheets of felt without any sort of project in mind.
At any rate, all this is typing is mostly just an excuse to show this picture from this morning. This is the first step so it’s just all loose fiber right now. It was getting kind of staticky so I sprinkled a few drops of water on. A beautiful temporal moment!
This guy was such a challenge. The commissioner had a reference drawing full of lovely detail so I had to try out some new techniques. Most of what I tried turned out good… Which was a really pleasant surprise! There are bits of wool baked right into the clay, makes me glad I only use real wool felt. Anything synthetic would have definitely melted into the over.
Comparison of original drawing with finished sculpture.
I’m excited to be growing as an artist and that I’m getting interesting work to do. The one good thing I got out of the pandemic was time to improve. I don’t think I would have tried to do this commission a year ago, or at least I would have simplified things greatly. I guess there really is a silver lining to everything!
Close up of Ormir
I’m still taking commissions by the way (wink wink, nudge nudge) A piece like this takes about 1 month to create so plan ahead if you have any gift ideas.
I received 2 commissions in January that compelled me to learn some new techniques. The more standard thing I learned is wet felting. Wet felting may seem like a natural thing for a needle felter to do but let me tell you, they are very different processes. I’m kind of liking it though! When the weather turns warm I think I might just set up a table outside and make a few scarfs.
I will be making at least one scarf (for the commission that prompted me to learn this process) and below is a little test strip I made. How cool are those dragon sales?
Interesting enough, my other commission was also dragon related. This other piece being a 3-d fiber art sculpture, I could certainly stick to my usual needle felting techniques. They wanted a clay head (which I have certainly done before) but there was going to be scales on that head that needed to blend into the scales on the spine. The texture transition (or really the lack of transition) of moving from clay to felt always kind bothered me in my past sculpts. Then it dawned on me, I use real wool in all my felting, and real wool is heat resistant. So I tested inserting the wool scales into the clay and baked them. And it worked! This opens up so much possibility moving forward. There’s still a few kinks to work out but overall I am happy with the result. I show off that dragon in my next post so stay tuned!
Wishless World 