Author: Karen Lane

Stylized Iris: Floral Fabric Art with Recycled Materials

/ Karen Lane / 6 Comments

In my last post I mentioned the Iris that I’ve been working on for the Lincolnshire Textile Group exhibition Bountiful Botanicals which will be held in August 2026 in Lincoln Cathedral. Having made numerous leaves, seed pods and flowers in the past using Tyvek I knew this fabric from DuPont would be perfect for the flower project. I think most readers will know of Tyvek fabric but if you don’t it’s made of 100% high density polyethylene (HDPE) fibres. These are randomly laid and compressed through a unique flash-spinning process to form a strong, non woven material that has the properties of paper, film, and fabric. It can be painted, stitched and heat distressed to create wonderful textures and exciting structures.

The idea was to create a single, tall slim flower with four leaves. I began by creating the individual petals, four larger ones to hand down and four slightly smaller ones to stand upright. I decided to make this a stylised Iris and added a twirly flourish at the end of each petal, finished off with a gold painted wooden bead.

Apart from the B&Q wire for the armatures all the other materials used in this project have been recycled or repurposed including the recycled Tyvek which I now buy in preference to the new, non recycled version. It isn’t as substantial as the original but perfectly good enough for creating petals, leaves, etc. and I love the effects I can get when it’s distressed and painted with metallic acrylics. Although it isn’t yet widely recycled there are specialist centres that are doing this which is good to know.

The stem of the flower is a repurposed garden cane and for the base I found the perfect shaped glass vase in my local charity shop. Originally I was going to felt a “bulb” as a base but I’m glad I went with the vase as it not only provides the stability needed for the display but it also gave me the ideal form around which I could wrap the string, plus it emphasise the verticality of the flower making it appear even taller. I was intending to dye the string but after offering up a few different coloured papers to audition the colours I came to the conclusion that it works better left natural as it gives more focus to the flower itself.

The photo of my flower in situ shows where the choice of colour came from. It stands 112cm tall and the flower head is approx 26cm wide.

Photo shows a hand made, single stem Iris created from Tyvek fabric and wire. The flower is painted in turquoise, purple and gold metallic acrylic with four turquoise leaves. It stands in a vase on a coffee table next to a large Monstera plant.


If you use Tyvek fabric in your projects and want to try the recycled version it’s available on eBay UK from Spenic-recycling.

Bountiful Botanicals: A Textile Art Transformation

/ Karen Lane / 6 Comments

At the Lincolnshire Textile Group this month members were invited to submit a piece of work inspired by our current theme of Bountiful Botanicals. I’ve been working on two pieces for the group exhibition and on Saturday morning I had to finally make up my mind which to submit. Would I show my tall, slender Iris, or would it be the wacky, over the top, carnivorous Banksia nut? Being a bit of a rebel, and knowing not everyone is a fan of six and eight legged creatures, I decided to chose the piece that I thought may not win but would get the strongest reaction……regardless of whether that reaction be good or bad! And so it was that I put the Iris back in the lounge and took the insects for an outing!

This piece has been a long time in the making as it began life in France last year when I attended a week long workshop with the very talented feltmaker/tutor Saar Snoek. We were asked to take along images of a 3D object, inspired by the natural world, that we would like to create during our week in the Dordogne. Mine was a photo of a Banksia nut, named after the explorer and botanist Joseph Banks who discovered and gave his name to the plant when he sailed to Australia with Captain Cook in 1768 aboard the Endeavour.

Saar taught me a fantastic technique which allowed me to achieve the bumpy texture I needed on the surface of the nut. Once the main body was laid out I set about making the follicles, the mouth shaped parts that are woody seed pods which split open to release the seeds. I don’t know what got in to me but I thought these needed to be substantial so I laid layer, upon layer, upon layer and as any feltmaker knows, the thicker the felt the harder it is to it shrink. Consequently I couldn’t shrink the lips as far as I’d intended, hence the finished nut became known as Mick (Jagger) or “Ducky”!

Not all projects go to plan and this one certainly didn’t work out as I’d hoped. After all that work, I’d got my proportions sooo wrong it ended up looking more like a child’s toy!

My “toy” Banksia Nut

The upside was that I’d had a fabulous time with our hosts Esther & Jan at Studio Felt & Fibre, tutor Saar Snoek and my fellow students. It was a crazy week from start to finish with lots of laughs, lovely food and beautiful evening walks. I’d learnt a lot and came home with my head buzzing with ideas, however, that nut would lay in my studio for approximately a year before an idea was formed as to how I could reinvent it.

  • My “toy” Banksia Nut
  • Minka laying out her enormous petals
  • Minka’s flower in progress
  • Ava’s work in progress fascinator
  • Ava models her wonderful fascinator
  • Esther with her Ernst Heckle inspired sculpture
  • Esther’s finished sculpture
  • Saar models Esther’s work in progress!
  • Emily couldn’t resist trying Esther’s sculpture on!
  • Joyce models her shroud embellishment
  • Emily laying out her flower
  • Emily’s finished flower
  • Studio Felt & Fibre

It was a few months back, while I was working through ideas for a wet felted carnivorous plant for the Lincolnshire Textile Groups “Bountiful Botanical” exhibition, that I had a light bulb moment. Why not restyle my Banksia, imagining a world where the plants gone rogue and has evolved in to an insect eater…..think Banksia nut meets Little Shop of Horrors! So I set to, adding some spikes to trap the insects in the mouths (took forever but was so worth it!) and some insect seeking tongue (ish) appendages snaking out of the mouth on top of the nut to catch even more unsuspecting prey and deposit them straight in to its jaws!

It was very fiddly and time consuming to retro fit the “teeth”, not to mention the three extra follicles, and there were several occasions when I wondered if I was completely wasting my time! Then it came to the point where I needed to make the insects and this was far more fun! Most of them were made with wire armatures wrapped with thread and then painted. Creating the insects made me smile and really brought the piece to life and so it was that the rather wacky Banksia Bites Back was born!

So back to the competition and there were two prizes up for grabs, the members vote and the Judges vote, the latter being chosen by that months visiting Textile Artist. There were lots of inspiring pieces on display and when the winners were announced the Members vote went to this beautiful mixed media piece by Pip Hind. It’s full of wonderful texture and colour and was a worthy winner, sadly this photo really doesn’t do it justice!

Next it was the turn of our speaker, visiting textile artist Anne Brooke, to make her choice. It seems Anne isn’t averse to insects and so I was pleasantly surprised when she announced my piece as her Judges choice! I’m glad I stuck at it and I’m hoping it will bring a smile to visitors faces when its exhibited next year. Like I said, it was a long time in the making but the great thing about a felt project, as with many textile projects, is that if your not happy with the result it simply means it isn’t finished!

Inspiration Rocks!…..

/ Karen Lane / 6 Comments

A few months ago I was delighted to receive an email from the editor of Felt Matters, the International Feltmakers quarterly magazine, saying that they would like to feature my work in their forthcoming edition. Each issue has its own theme and this next one was going to be Rocks, Crystals and Minerals so it’s provided a great opportunity for me to share some of my rock inspired pieces with my fellow feltmakers around the world.

Summer Textile Projects…..

/ Karen Lane / Leave a comment

As I sit down to begin this post the sky has darkened and the rain (fingers crossed) is about to fall, heaven knows we need it, but what a fabulous summer it’s been so far here in sunny Lincolnshire! I tend to not do too much in the way of creative stuff through July and August as there are too many distractions and this year the intense heat has made me feel very lazy so lots of time spent relaxing, reading and watching creative videos. Consequently I’ve now got a table full of projects I need to finish and a head full of others I want to start. 

A couple of projects I did do this summer are two wet felted vessels. The first one, inspired by a shrivelled seed pod, was made at the İFA Region 8’s Summer School in Arnesby near Leicester. Our region encompasses several counties and is so spread out we struggle to get our İFA members to attend. On the other hand we have a regular group of creative ‘non members’ in the locality who are more than welcome to come along to our events, and thankfully they do! It was a busy and fun two days…..

My seed pod began life as five leaf book resist measuring 27cm x 36cm and various colours of Merino and Corriedale fibres. After removing the resist and fulling the felt I pushed and pulled the pod and attached strong clips to create the shape I wanted. I didn’t want a visible hole so the one I cut was so tiny so meant the resist ended up being pulled to pieces in order to get it out! Now it’s finished I feel like it needs a bit of something adding so I’m wondering about embroidering circles in a dull gold thread?


The second vessel was started last Friday when I was working at the Usher Gallery in Lincoln. I’d seen a post somewhere mentioning they were having their second Artist Studio Day and inviting local artists to apply. If successful it meant I would get the use of a table in their ground floor workspace and get to spend the day with four other artists. It sounded like a great opportunity and I’m so glad I applied! Only four artists turned up on the day and unfortunately one of those had to leave early. My other two companions were both painters and it was nice to get to know a bit about them and watch them work. We had a few members of the public come in to see what we were doing but for most of the time it was very quiet which allowed us to focus on our projects.

The day before I went I made a textured prefelt using threads, silks, fabrics, etc which I could cut up to create the undulating surface decoration. It was necessary to do this beforehand as I knew my vessel was unlikely to be finished on the day but would need to be at a stable stage in order to be able to fold it to carry back to the car. I got the obvious comments from one or two folk of how my work “looked like a pizza”. The following day after removing the resist and fulling it my 41cm dia pizza had become an 18cm x 24cm 3D vessel weighing 120gms. I’m loving the textures and colours it has!

One of the Summer pieces on my table which I’ve yet to finish is an Iris which I started at the end of July. This is going to be for the Lincolnshire Textile Groups Bountiful Botanicals competition taking place in October. I’m creating it from hand painted Tyvek fabric and wire and the flower will be approximately 30cm dia by 115cm tall. I’ve just got the leaves to do now and then I’ve got the perfect spot for it in my lounge when it’s finished. I don’t want to reveal too much before the competition so this is a sneak preview for now…..

Another work in progress on my table right now is this insect brooch, at approx 14cm long I’ve definitely developed a thing for hand made oversized textile brooches! I’ve just got the legs and antennae to finish, more colour to add and the pin to attach.

My final work in progress is a mixed media project and something else I’m keeping under wraps until October as it’s also for the Lincolnshire Textile Group. Depending on how it turns out, it might replace the Iris as my competition piece. This started life as an oversized wet felted Banksia Nut which I made last year. I’ve never been happy with it but a few months ago I had the idea of giving it a new lease of life with a new identity. I’ve still got lots to do to it yet. It’s by far the strangest thing I’ve ever made and it won’t be for everyone, let’s just say it’s a hybrid of Banksia meets Venus Fly Trap and yes numerous insects will appear to be harmed in the making of this piece! I can’t wait to reveal it!

Art of the Now…..

/ Karen Lane / 12 Comments

A few months ago I responded to an ad for local artists to apply for the chance to exhibit their art in an Open Call exhibition being held at the Usher Art Gallery in Lincoln. We could submit up to three pieces in any medium. There were around 900 works submitted in total which were then whittled down to just over 100. I was thrilled when I found out that my Nuno felted/mixed media abstract landscape “Northern Soul” had been successful!

Time spent walking in the beautiful Northumberland landscape, particularly around the Coquet Valley and Simonside Hills, provided the inspiration for Northern Soul. It was created using a variety of fibres and fabrics, wet felted and free motion stitched on to a painted background of Lutradur fabric.

The Art of the Now exhibition runs from now until October 19th, it’s open from Thursday through to Monday from 10am – 4pm. It’s free entry and there is a wide variety of techniques, mediums, subject matter and styles on display, although given the rising interest in textile art it would have been nice to see the gallery representing more of this.
These are a view images from the opening event.

More Insect Brooches…..

/ Karen Lane / 9 Comments

In my last post I showed a dragonfly brooch that worked out too large for me to wear so is now on my wall…..my steampunk dragonfly brooch has worked out even bigger! It’s made with painted cotton fabric and various trims cut from lace with metal beads, wire and cogs. I’m now doubting I will get a full outfit made in time for the Lincoln Asylum festival in August but at least I’ll have this humongous brooch to wear!

I seem to have developed a bit of a thing for large fabric insect brooches. Billy the beetle is my latest make. No, he’s not a stag beetle, he’s a rare breed, so far only seen in the Lincolnshire Wolds😜 His body started out as a very simple shape cut from cotton fabric which was stuffed and moulded with a few stitched tucks here and there. He’s been decorated lace and hand painted and this time I added legs, wrapping them with threads and adding beads. He has a lot more character than the previous insects, maybe that’s a beetle thing? I can feel an infestation of beetle brooches coming on and it amuses me that when I’m not wearing him I can stand him on my desk as if he’s about to pounce .….sometimes it’s the little things that us smile!

Felted Shells & Fabric Insects…..

/ Karen Lane / 3 Comments

In my last post I showed you my wet felted conch shell made from Merino and Corriedale fibres with ribs made from Sari silk yarn. I liked the shape of this and wanted to make another, this time in off white with pale coloured ribs. I found a site on Etsy selling a beautiful subtle coloured variegated sari yarn but unfortunately when it arrived it was so loosely spun I realised it wouldn’t be suitable for this particular project.

Pale neutral coloured Sari yarn layer out in rows


As I was in the mood for felting I didn’t want to have to reorder so decided to search for a pastel “slubby” knitting yarn which I knew was hidden somewhere in the depths of my yarn stash.

A ball of pale grey knitting yarn with slubs in shades of grey and peach.

It turned out to be far easier to work with than sari silk as it was less inclined to move while felting and it had just the right amount of colour and texture for the look I was after. I was intending to leave this shell plain white but now it’s made I think it will benefit from a bit of shading so that’ll get added at some point.

I increased the size of this one to approx 31cm long x 15cm wide x 6cm high. My spinning group has a coastal theme for our 2026 exhibition so there will be lots more shells being made in various fibres, fabrics, techniques, shapes and sizes.

Two wet felted conch shells. A small one in shades of red and blue. A larger one in white with pale grey and peach coloured ribs
A white wet felted conch shell with ribs in pale grey and peach.


Wet felted spiral shells crop up a lot online and I’d been wracking my brain for ages trying to work out how these are made. I had a light bulb moment back in December when I made this small spiral shell from 10gm of carded Corriedale. Since then I’ve worked out another way of achieving a similar shape and so made this larger version using 20gm of carded Corriedale fibre and measuring approx 13cm x 9cm.

Photo shows two wet felted spiral shells, the larger one is beige, the smaller one is grey.

At one point the shell was sitting next to this bowl and I wondered how the centre piece from the bowl would look inserted in the shell…..

Photo of a wet felted bowl made with blue and turquoise Bergschaf fibres. Felted cords radiate out from the centre of the bowl creating height and interest.

…..I quite liked it so I’m now wondering whether to leave it in there as an abstract hermit crab or make the effort to felt a more realistic looking crab, what do you think?

Beige coloured wet felted spiral shell. Lilac and pale green felt cords protrude from its opening suggesting an abstract life form.
Photo of a beige coloured Wet felted spiral shell with abstract hermit crab poking out of it.

Another theme I’m working on right now is insects, particularly dragonflies and butterflies. It all stemmed from a tutorial by textile artist Anastasiya Goleneva to make this beautiful dragonfly brooch. It’s made from hand and machine stitched and painted calico. At 16cm long x 21cm wide it worked out a bit too big for me to wear as a brooch so instead I’ve put a Command strip on the back and mounted it to the wall.

Having enjoyed making it I decided to do another but using interfacing and my own technique for the body and legs that would allow it to stand and give it a more delicate, longer, slimmer look. One thing I’m not happy with is the “flat” face which suited the brooch but doesn’t look right on the standing dragonfly so version three is underway!

Photo of a 3D dragonfly made from machine stitched fabric and hand painted. It’s standing on an outside table with greenery in the background.
Photo of a 3D dragonfly created from machine stitched fabric. It’s painted in metallic colours of mainly green, pink and blue.

The dragonflies led to my friend Diane asking me to show her how to make a simple butterfly brooch so I made a couple of samples with body and wings made from painted cotton velvet. This fabric takes on a beautiful leather like look and feel when painted with fabric paints or acrylics and remains very soft and flexible. I was thinking of hand embroidering the wings but decided to keep it basic as Diane could add more detail if she wanted to.

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MAD Museum & A Felted Shell…..

/ Karen Lane / Leave a comment

Another catch up with a post written for the Felting & Fibre Studio but this time something a bit different. I discovered the wonderful Museum of Mechanical Art & Design in Stratford on Avon earlier this year and had a great time when I visited on my way down to a workshop at Stitching Kitchen in Brackley…..

MAD Museum & a Felted Shell

A catch up…..

/ Karen Lane / 1 Comment

One thing I can never be accused of is bombarding readers with too many blog posts! Every once in a while, today being an example, I realise I’ve been posting on the Felting & Fibre Studio, on Facebook and on Instagram and completely forgetting to add the same content to my website. I didn’t used to have this problem as originally it was possible to link WordPress with Facebook, but then that option was removed and I got sloppy. I’ve only just discovered that it’s an option again and probably has been for years!
So, backside kicked, rant over, and time to catch up on what’s been happening this Spring with a post I wrote recently for the Felting & Fibre Studio…..

Connections

Celebrating Horncastle Artists…..

/ Karen Lane / 4 Comments

The Joseph Banks Centre on Bridge Street, Horncastle LN95HZ launched their latest exhibition this evening Celebrating Horncastle Artists 1783 – 2024. It showcases work by 29 local artists and opening times are from 10am – 4pm on the 5th, 6th, 7th, 12th, 13th & 14th December.

The event has been organised and curated by two members of the Horncastle Art Group, Susan Buckley and Penny Roberts, with the aim of giving visitors the chance to learn about the town’s artists from the past as well as to view a collection of contemporary work by local artists of the present day. I was delighted to be one the artists invited to take part!

I have several of my 3D felt pieces in two of the glass cabinets, one contains a selection of my Making Waves work and is at the end of the gallery opposite Lynn Bakers beautiful blown glass. The other cabinet displays a few of the projects that I offer as workshops.

More images from this evenings launch…..

There’s a good mix of work on display from amateur artists as well as professionals and an interesting and varied range of mediums, styles and subject matter. A few of my personal favourites were those by Martin Moyers, Rose West, Fraser Scarfe and Noel Lambley. The Joseph Banks Centre is a lovely venue for this exhibition with the added bonus that you get to see the exhibits and information boards telling the fascinating story of Sir Joseph Banks, botanist, explorer and patron of the sciences 1743 – 1820.

For more information on the Horncastle Art Group contact horncastleartgroup@gmail.com