Version II, To Nurture & Protect

close up of felted mountains and sky

close up of felting

finished felting yarns onto muslin

Wool and yarn selections

Felted wool sweaters

I've started a new quilt for the Fyber Cafe challenge. It is similar to the previous one, 18" diameter circle of layered bands of color, sky, mountains, greenery, soil/rust, water and polar white. It is all done with needle felting on a muslin background. I cut strips of felted wool, most I had bought at a garage sale, a lady had felted a BUNCH of sweaters! But some I used commercial felt from my crafty days. I added strips of wool tufts, yarns, dyed cheesecloth, NO Angelina. I had gotten a NEW needle felting machine at Fabric Depot, last time I drove to Seattle, it was my first time using it, WOW, it felted beautifully, all the different textures, of yarn and felt. I also had a little bit of shimmery silky white fabric, I tore into strips for the polar areas. I broke at least 5 needles, moving too fast, I am sure glad I thought to get extra needles. I am now adding beads in swoosh bands across each color layer. Each is a mix of different size seed beads, bugles, and larger beads. It adds a lot of sparkle to a natural fiber textural background.

"To Nurture and Protect" Project

FIMO penguins I made to add to the bottom.
Almost done, need to add penguins and some other edge detail
Right side landscape, owl in tree and desert area
Middle landscape, forest and woodland
left side landscape, tropical


The Fyber Cafe challenge is almost done, we all got delayed, Thanksgiving & Christmas and personal issues. Hopefully in January the finished projects are due. We will still have to mount them on the stretcher bars covered with fabric. A few of the projects are coming along nicely, and others have good intentions, so we will see. I got the last details worked out on mine and today I finally got the backing onto it. I turned it "Pillowcase" style with an extra flap at the top to insert a piece of cardboard to support the circular design. I won't use the cardboard when stitched to the frame, but afterwards, I don't think I'll leave it on the frame. I top stitched all the way around the circle to give it a more finished edge. I have a few more bits and pieces to add along the edges, and some small areas that need to be covered, 'cause they came up short. The undersea area came out beautifully, I added silk ribbon embroidery, lots of beading, and regular floss embroidery, real seashells, it is busy with coral and embellishments. In the south pole area I added melted bits of turquoise chiffon, and streams of beads with white, pearl, clear turquoise, crystal and white snowflake buttons. The mixed group of beads flows across the bottom in waves. I found one pair of penguins earrings at Walmart but I had to repaint them, they were blue and sparkly. I made 3 extra penguins with FIMO clay, in black, white and yellow, I baked them too hot and the white got burnt looking so I had to repaint them too. I forgot to put button holes in them, so I'll just stitch them on around the necks. I can see the end of this challenging project. I put in a lot of detail, including a fortune in hand sewn beads and buttons. The non-traditional fabrics, velvet with cotton balls, silky polyester, glittery 1/4" netting, melted chiffon and wool needle felting, added to the whole concept. It is an exuberant expression of the environment and all the various creatures in it.

wrong picture

oops wrong picture, could NOT figure how to delete it once it was in, not even from edit drafts. So here is the right picture, I hope. There we go.. an image of the sky, Angelina and blue velvet.

Beginning Construction

I started with a full size freezer paper template, with an 18" circle drawn on it. I decided on the soft curves and spaced the layers, to flow across the sphere. This allowed me to see the size of the trees I would be working with, and how much of the sea/sky/polar areas.The earth/soil strip runs roughly at the equator, creating an equal amount of earth/sea. I colored the freezer paper with crayons, made dark lines for each section, and penciled in a lot of detail with quick sketches. Deciding to add animals or not was important. I didn't want them to look too cartoonish, but they are part of the eco-system, and I definitely wanted a few, birds or penguins, or fish/whales. So when I decided to thread paint them on top of the pre-printed cutouts, that made a big difference. Now as I work with my drawing, I think maybe the scale will be all wrong, and they would have to be too small. As I choose fabric for the Northern sky and a shimmering white for the polar snow, I needed to consider construction. I didn't want the dark blue seam to show, if I layered the fabric with raw edges. I decided to machine sew the curve seam, so the dark could be ironed to the back side. The snow and glittery netting needed to be crumpled up and stitched in place, so I needed to sew them to a muslin foundation. I also wanted to add beads to tack the folds in place, but the quilting needs to be done first. So I decided to add a thin white batting to the layer and quilt as I go. This way I can add the beads right away and not have to add all the detail at the last minute. Also my stitches to add parts won't show on the back, so I won't have to worry about it. Also the finished piece will be mounted on fabric covered stretcher bars, so no one will even see the reverse. I will finish it off on the back, but it won't show all my detailed quilting.