The First Quarter of 2023…..

April 7, 2023April 7, 2023 / Karen Lane / 14 Comments

After kicking myself, yet again, for not keeping my posts up to date here goes with a round up of what I’ve been doing in the first quarter of 2023.

I’ll start with the fact that I’ve pulled out of the Alford Craft Market Shop where I’ve been selling some of my felted items for the past two years. I only went in originally because in 2020 The Big Textile Show was cancelled due to Covid and I had lots of product destined for that show sitting in boxes going no where! Also workshops weren’t happening and so I had plenty of time to make more stock so it made sense to find an outlet and Lynne at the Alford shop kindly found me a space.

Workshops have always been, and always will be, my main focus so with life back to normal in 2022 it was time to leave the Alford shop at the year end to concentrate on what I enjoy doing most.

I don’t always get the chance (or sometimes I simply forget!) to take photos during a class but these are a few of the workshops I’ve run since the beginning of this year of which I have images…..

In February the Ladies at EYE’s (East Yorkshire Embroiderers) invited me back up to spend the weekend with them in Cottingham. I’d been working on a new illustrated talk for them, originally I’d said it would be The History of Feltmaking but very soon in to my research I realised that title was a huge mistake as it was far too broad a topic for a 45 minute talk! I knew I wanted to start with some of the earliest discoveries of felt known to man, discovered in the Tarim Basin and at Pazyryk in Siberia, and end with present day Feltmakers who are pushing the boundaries of what can be achieved with fibre, water, soap and imagination. The difficulty was what to leave out and what to put in from the intervening 4,000ish years which would join those two sections and ensure the presentation was interesting, exciting and had flow. Having delayed starting this project until the beginning of December it was going to keep me very busy over Christmas and in to the New Year!

This naturally mummified baby was discovered in the Tarim Basin wearing a blue felted hat and dates to around 600BCE

This wonderful Felt Swan was discovered at the Pazyryk burial site and dates to the 5th to 4th century BCE.
Image source Hermitage Museum

Doing the research was fascinating and also very time consuming. I found myself going off on a tangent many times as one interesting fact led to another, and another……. I’ve now got enough content in the bag for another talk when I get around to sorting it out. Needless to say the whole thing took a lot longer than I anticipated and I only got finished a couple of days before I was due to present in Cottingham! My one and only talk until now has been about my journey as a textile artist and that’s the easiest subject to talk about as it’s what I know, no crib sheets required! This wasn’t going to be quite so easy, not the first time around anyway, and there was the added worry that others might not find it as interesting to listen to as I had done to research.

A Journey in Felt starts with the benefits of wool fibre and takes us from Iron Age discoveries through to the present day including some of the amazing felt creations featured in the annual World of Wearable Art Competition.

I gave my talk, A Journey in Felt, to an audience of approximately 120 ladies on the Saturday and breathed a huge sigh of relief with the positive response it received! That night I probably had the best nights sleep for several weeks and the following day we were back at the venue for the wet felted Fairy Slipper workshop.

Thirteen ladies took part in the workshop, 11 making the slippers and two of them opting to create a wet felted picture which they had done with me previously and had asked if they could do again.

Also in February I visited the Creative Stitchers at Great Coates where we spent the day painting, stitching and heat distressing Tyvek fabric to make our Tyvek leaves and 3D seed pods. I love the fact that, due to the process used, these pieces cannot be repeated so each one will always be totally unique!

Something I’m doing much more of now is small group workshops in my home studio. These tend to be groups of friends who book together either for a specific project or, as in the case of Margie, Di, Clare and Jacky, each one came with a certain idea in mind and I helped guide them towards completion. These ladies have been several times for wet felting and in February decided to ring the changes with some needle felting and Tyvek work.

Following a request earlier this year I put together a beginners Hand Embroidery Workshop. I love hand embroidery but tend to stick with using just the same two or three stitches so it was really nice to get back to basics and rediscover the ones I haven’t used for quite some time. Hand stitching isn’t something you can rush so it was also good to sit and relax and generally slow things down for a little while whilst making my samples.

In this class we progress through the different stitches with each student making a sampler which can be used for future reference. The sampler consists of 18 stitches (some basic and some not so basic!) and students also get a template of flower shapes which they can take away and stitch at leisure using their newly acquired skills.

The next images are of the first of these classes which was held at the Alford Craft Market Studio in February.

Later that month I had Emma, Kirsty and Sue come along to my studio for the beginners hand embroidery class.

Layer, Stitch & Burn is another fabric and stitch workshop but this time using the sewing machine and with the added excitement of “burning” our fabric! The first time I saw this technique being demonstrated was many years ago in a video by a Canadian textile artist called Susan Lenz. Susan works in many different mediums and styles and uses this technique for her In Box and Window series.

Last month I took Layer, Stitch & Burn to the Sleaford Embroiderers at their monthly gathering at the Hub in Sleaford. This is a fun, experimental workshop using a variety of synthetic fabrics. Techniques include cutting, layering, bonding, foiling and free motion stitching. Finally, once everything is held firmly in place, we burn away our background using a soldering iron & heat tool to leave a lace like effect. Most of the ladies would go on to finish their work at home but here are a few photos of their work in progress.

The next set of images show the beautiful Nuno Felted Scarves made by eleven ladies in Barton under Needwood, Staffordshire. These were all created by layering Superfine Merino with fine silk fabrics. Its always interesting to see the different colour combinations students put together and how some really go to town with the added elements such as prefelt, yarn, etc to create additional texture.

Every scarf made in these classes is totally unique and I’m always thrilled to see how happy students are with what they have achieved. It’s even more rewarding knowing, as with this group, that none of the ladies had used this technique before!

My most popular workshop currently has to be the Superfine Merino Roll Edge Collar with brooch fastener. I’ve done a couple of these in my studio recently and last month I travelled down to run the class in Ashby Magna, Leicestershire for Region 8 of the International Feltmakers Association. Ten ladies attended the class and achieved some really wonderful results.

It was a lovely surprise to see that Fiona had also brought along some fabulous wet felted birds and a hare to show me. She made these at home using techniques she had learnt in my Chicken Workshop in Arnesby, Leicestershire last October…..we were all very impressed!

All in all it’s been a great start to 2023 and in between workshops I’ve been working on some creative projects of my own so will include those in future posts……I just need to keep up the momentum now I’m back at it!!

British Quilt & Stitch Village…..

March 31, 2022 / Karen Lane / 7 Comments

Back in 2019 I signed up to take part, for the first time, in the 2020 British Quilt & Stitch Village Show which is held annually at Uttoxeter Racecourse in Staffordshire. Needless to say it got postponed due to Covid and was rescheduled for 2021. With Covid delaying it yet again it was rescheduled for 2022 and will finally be launching in three weeks time on the 22nd of April.

It’s been such a long time coming I am so excited at the thought of getting back to exhibiting again after all this time! It’s also going to be great to see the other exhibits…..online exhibitions are better than none but you can’t beat being up close and personal to really appreciate other people’s work.

The show will be on from 10am each day on the 22nd , 23rd & 24th of April with lots of fantastic exhibitors and traders eager to help us replenish our stash! There is lots of free parking and the site is wheelchair accessible. The show offers a warm, friendly atmosphere, displaying plenty of embroidery/quilt exhibits (group & competition), and work from textile artists and Feltmakers plus a variety of traders and fabulous workshops.

If you are planning to visit please stop by my stall and say hello. Unless there is a last minute shuffle you will find me in the Premier Bar, these are just a few of the pieces I will have on show.

A Collar or a Necklace?

March 27, 2022March 27, 2022 / Karen Lane / 8 Comments

I can’t decide whether to call my latest pieces, made from World of Wool Superfine Merino and Viscose fibres, a collar or a necklace? Weighing less than 1oz they are my lightest yet, and I really don’t know I’m wearing them, but they are perfect for dressing up a plain outfit.

The grey/pink version is held in place with a hand painted, embroidered and beaded Tyvek brooch while the grey/yellow has a matching felted flower (with a nod to Pam de Groot’s “splash”)

Monstera…..

February 15, 2022 / Karen Lane / 9 Comments

Where did January go? With the lifting of Covid restrictions and things starting to get back to normal the time is passing in a blur. It’s terrific to be takings bookings for classes once again and I’m looking forward to working with new groups this year. It’s also going to be great, after two years of cancelled exhibitions, to be showing my work at the Quilt & Stitch Village at Uttoxeter in April and the Big Textile Show at Leicester in October.

At the Waltham Textile group we normally have a biannual exhibition of our work but, due to Covid, it was cancelled in 2020 rescheduled for 2021 and then had to be cancelled again. It’s now been confirmed for August but in the meantime I’ve sold my main “Leaf” themed piece made for that show so recently made this mixed media “Monstera” to replace it.

I bought a 40cm x 80cm canvas with the intention of painting Monstera leaves on it and then adding a 3D Felted leaf. After drawing a template onto paper and offering it up to plan the layout I changed my mind about painting onto the canvas. It’s not something I’ve done before and the surface appeared to be a bit too textured for the look I wanted to create. Instead I sketched the leaves onto a piece of white cotton fabric, outlined them with an Inktense pencil and added a little shading. The aim was for very simple, very smooth, perfectly formed leaves looking more like curved metal than the foliage on my cheese plant. I think this was influenced by the very smooth metallic looking Tyvek seed pods I’ve been making lately.

The Monstera in our lounge looks a bit neglected, to the point that I couldn’t bring myself to photograph it for this post! Its been with me for more years than I can remember, moving from house to house, and I thought it would be nice to make a piece of work inspired by this plant….or should I say the plant it used to be!!

I don’t consider myself a painter but I do like painting on to fabric. If you need to paint precise lines a good tip is to use aloe vera (by far the cheapest) or acrylic medium instead of water when applying acrylics on fabric. This keeps the paint where you want it to be and avoids it bleeding into other areas. I managed to get a tiny bit of black paint on the lower section of the fabric but stopped short of starting all over again when I realised the felted leaf would cover it up!

My paper template for the painted leaves was 13” x 18” so to make the felted leaf I multiplied by 1.4 enlarging it to 18.5” x 24” to allow for shrinkage. Layer one was a very yellowish green Merino (might have been lichen but not certain). Layer two was a combination of various shades of grey with the yellowish green running down the centre. This was topped with a layer of dark green Merino and Ireland Viscose all around the edge and snippets of gold Viscose down the centre. These images don’t give a true representation of colours but you get the gist.

After wetting out I measured the fibres and found they had spread to approx 20” x 27”. At the fulling stage, every now and then, I put the original template on top to check for size and ensure I was keeping to the right shape.

Once it had shrunk to the correct size it was left to dry. The next stage was to add wires to the back of the leaf so it could be shaped. This could possibly have been done with directional laying of the fibres and lots of fulling but I wanted the option of posing the leaf once it was attached to the canvas and wires are a good way of doing this.

The wires were spaced out and attached on the reverse using a zigzag stitch which also formed the veins on the front side. You can see that bright yellowish green colour on the reverse of the leaf. Once that was done it was just a matter of cutting into the felt to form the individual leaves and the characteristic little holes of the cheese plant before attaching to the canvas.

Do You Recycle Your Coffee Capsules?

November 9, 2021November 9, 2021 / Karen Lane / 3 Comments

Do you recycle your coffee capsules? I’ve recently started doing this, on a very small scale I admit, by getting creative and adding them as inclusions to my felt. It got me wondering what other folk might be creating with theirs. This is a guest blog I’ve just written for the Felting and Fibre Studio on that subject…..

Recycled Coffee Capsules

Final Show…..

June 8, 2021June 12, 2025 / Karen Lane / 12 Comments

No, not my final show! This is the final show from members of the now defunct (CCN) Contemporary Craft Network. The group disbanded in 2019 but five of us have got together for one last time to exhibit at the beautiful Sam Scorer Gallery on Drury Lane in Lincoln’s Cathedral Quarter. The exhibition is free admission, open 10am – 4pm and runs from today until the 20th June. (There is a sixth person mentioned on the poster but unfortunately Andrew had to pull out at the last minute)

We set up yesterday and it’s looking great! There are two feltmakers, myself and fellow IFA member Moira West. There are two glass makers, Kevin Wallhead and Kate Sell, and two mixed media artists, myself and Christine Plummer. The nice thing is that although some of us share a passion for the same medium/craft, everyone of us has a totally different approach and a different style. When combined this has resulted in an interesting mix and what we are hoping will be a very successful show.

If you are reading this and you are local, or even further afield and fancy a day out in Lincoln, it would be great to have you visit. There are lots of other attractions in the area including a wealth of independent shops and bars, our fabulous Cathedral and Castle, the Little Red Gallery, St Martins Gallery and Harding House….all within walking distance of the Sam Scorer Gallery. With the exception of today and the 18th there will be a different artist on duty all day every day so why not come along, see their work and learn all about their craft.

2021 First Quarter Challenge…..

February 21, 2021June 12, 2025 / Karen Lane / 19 Comments

The 2021 first quarter challenge from the Felting and Fibre Studio going out to all felters, spinners, weavers, stitchers, knitters, crocheters and mixed media fibre artists is to make something inspired by the decade 1900 – 1909.

Normally, with so many possibilities, I would spend quite some time looking at the different options but this time I knew instantly where I would be taking my inspiration from. It would be the book Art Forms in Nature which consists of stunning illustrations by the German biologist and professor of zoology, Ernst Haeckel. These illustrations were first published in 1904 and so fit the brief perfectly!

Haeckles illustrations have provided a source of inspiration for many designers and artists over the years starting with the Art Nouveau movement and continuing today.

Early 20th century Art Nouveau designs for (from left to right) jewellery, tiles, lighting, glassware and wallpaper influenced by Haeckel.
Source: https://aboutartnouveau.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/a-sea-of-glass/

A recurring shape seen throughout this book is the hexagon, hardly surprising as it’s everywhere we look in nature……from the basalt pillars of the Giants Causeway to honeycomb, it’s also found in the eyes of insects, tortoise shells, algae, fish scales and microscopic Protozoa…..the list goes on and on!

I decided to make two sample pieces of surface decoration based on the hexagonal and using Bergschaf fibres but each sample would have different positive/negative space.

The first was a very simple form which can be open or closed.

The second was created using exactly the same template and resist but what was negative space on the top layer in the first sample became positive space in the second, creating a totally different look.

If you are interested in joining in this particular challenge, or any future challenges, or if you simply want to see what others have created you can find details on the Felt and Fibre Studio website

One Scarf…..Several Possibilities

January 3, 2021January 3, 2021 / Karen Lane / 13 Comments

With the temperature dropping dramatically over the past week it’s no surprise that my last make of 2020 and my first of 2021 have been scarves. The beauty of both of these is that they are reversible so you have one scarf…..several possibilities.

2020’s last project was a fringed, reversible cobweb scarf made from a fabulous Superfine Merino blend called Champs Elyse from the Italian company DHG. The reverse side is a patchwork of hand dyed Margilan silk. I particularly love this and have been living in it for the past week as its incredibly soft and lightweight and goes with almost everything I wear.

I’ve recently made several single sided ruffle scarves but my first scarf of this year is a reversible ruffle.

As with so many of my projects, the colour scheme for my new year scarf changed and developed as I worked. Originally it was going to be a combination of colours inspired by the Champs Elyse.

Having laid out the central fibres in blue and green I ditched the multicoloured idea and I’m so pleased I did as I prefer the simplicity of this final scheme with this particular shape. It’s difficult to get a true representation of the colours in a photo but on the blue side I’ve overlaid with a very deep purple Viscose. This has created an extra depth of colour that I’m really pleased with. Apologies for the mismatched brooches…..I grabbed what I had for the sake of getting photos and posting this evening! I will be making a couple this week which will be more appropriate for the ruffle scarf.

Channelling the Grey…..

November 30, 2020November 30, 2020 / Karen Lane / 11 Comments

The past couple of weeks have been very grey, damp and overcast but, unlike a lot of folk I know, I love being outdoors when it’s like this and have even found myself volunteering for extra long dog walks!! Don’t get me wrong, I love the Summer but there’s something very atmospheric about a grey damp day and the smell of the soil and vegetation underfoot.

I think I’ve been subconsciously channelling the grey into my latest work because I hadn’t really thought about changing from a gold/rust palette to a grey scheme….it just seemed to happen.

Again, although I’ve not been dwelling on it, I also think that lockdown, and the resulting lack of opportunity for nights out and seasonal parties, has maybe left me pining for a bit of glamour.

The first grey collar was one of my mystery (unlabelled) fibre blends. It’s a little hairy but extremely soft. It’s the longest of the three which gives it scope for being worn in different ways.

The second is a blend of Superfine Merino with white Bamboo fibre which creates a fabulous sheen.

The third is Superfine Merino with white Bamboo and a dusky pink Viscose fibre. I love the silky effect that’s created by the Viscose and find I’m using this more and more.

I’m now working on shoulder bags to coordinate with the collars.

Nights out are on hold for the time being but we may as well be ready for when we can get that little black number on again!

Autumn inspired…..

October 19, 2020October 25, 2020 / Karen Lane / 9 Comments

These scarves celebrate my favourite time of year, the Autumn. All around us the leaves are now turning beautiful shades of red, orange and gold, there’s the crunch of leaves underfoot and the earthy smell of damp soil. It’s time for wearing warm scarves and mittens and what better excuse for making some Autumn inspired pieces. I couldn’t resist adding a few falling leaves to a couple of them!