Homemade Soap with Wool Felted Over

These are called several things - like even "wash cloth covered soap".

I make homemade soap every year (I need to make more soon) for our bath/shower/hand washing needs. I even make a shampoo bar soap too. I've not bought soap in years, nor shampoo. I could use it for laundry too, but don't. (I even make my own face lotion.)

I used older leftover soap for these felted soap bars. I knit circular washcloths (most people use them as doilies)(I need to take a picture of them) and chose colors of wool that would coordinate. I wrapped wool tightly around the soap, dipped it into a basin of hot water I'd put Dawn dish soap in. I had a sandwich plastic bag for initially rubbing the wool covered soap in - it sticks to the hands too much until it starts felting. I have a handmade bar of goat soap at the sink and would add it to my hands for further felting of the bars, adding more hot water to my hands. Using the sandwich bag for rubbing all around the soap works great!

GrandKiddos

Emery and Bea awaiting Mom's return home!

I've been getting pics emailed me from my kids of their kids and wanting to get them off my desktop and posted.

A year ago on my old blog, Karey's Contemplations, I'd written of being often in Wisconsin as Monte's Father Emery was in the hospital. As Em was leaving this world a baby was born and our son Travis, and Sarah, named him Emery. So now Emery is approaching his first Christmas and birthday.

Also on my old blog I posted lots about Heather and her eHarmony found husband Bill, and on to their son Will. I posted about Bill being deployed for his fourth time (he's now a major and hopefully retiring with no more deployments!). So I was there for the birth of my first grandchild. Then Heather and Will came and spent most of that year living with us. So go to my old blog for more pics and stories.

Will wearing a shirt I dyed for him

They'll all be here for Christmas.

Luminescence - Shiva Paintsticks; & Needle-felted Ornaments

My November's color/design class challenge was luminescence.

I've been buying shirts and jackets at Goodwill with the plan to over-dye them, creating whole new creations (I've done this since high school, on into having babies, and now for whole family). One shirt was bright yellow with stripes, so I thought it might be good for this project. I originally did a lot of basting along all the centers of each stripe strip, pulling the stitching tight. Well the over-dyeing didn't turn out as I was wanting - should have used a waxed string for a better resist. I over-dyed it some some more.

I've been wanting to use the Shiva paint sticks ... I have some pieces of textured wallpaper I saved. That was the under texture for rubbing a black Shiva stick over. Then I used another flowered texture made for using with the paint sticks rubbing an iridescent gold over - that created the luminescence! I used the paint sticks stenciling leaf designs on the back yoke and down the button placket.

I'd also gone to Hobby Lobby looking specifically for luminescent possibilities. I wanted to make Christmas ornaments using styrofoam balls and needle-felting wool on. I came home with ribbons, embroidery floss and sequins.

I'm going to make more, trying different sizes. These are the largest I'd make. Monte wouldn't mind a tree full of these!

Thanksgiving Tree & Needle-Felting

This day at MOPS was "Share Your Wares" with tables set up around the room perimeter for anyone wanting to display/sell whatever it is they do. So I set up a table with all the variety of felting I do - from my sculpted people, landscape pictures, purses, hats, slippers, etc ... along with selling my cookbook.

I also did the Devotional for the day, showing one of my Thanksgiving Tree posters from a past Thanksgiving, and talking about it -

I often get frustrated at the Thanksgiving table when I ask what people are thankful for. Usually someone says something silly and then everyone else does. So now on a large piece of paper I draw a tree, with lots of branches and no leaves, to hang on the wall. I cut a variety of leaves from colored construction paper and leave them sit on a counter with a pen and glue stick. If this is done a week or so before Thanksgiving everyone who comes to our house can write something they're thankful for on a leaf and glue it on the tree. Then by Thanksgiving, we've had time to think beyond tangibles like food, family, God, friends, pets etc to intangibles like Truth, Love, integrity and then beyond to firemen, police, doctors ...

The rest of the time I sat felting wool flowers to go in a vase I made from 'material' I made with my needle-felting machine. The vase's foundation is craft felt with dyed cheesecloth needled on - the design is created by needling from the back and the front. Needling from the back forces the black felt color to the front or whatever colored felt piece I put on the back. I added beanbag pellets in the vase as a weight. At home I'd wet felted green wool around pipe-cleaners, then I could just needle the flowers to them.

I'd put together some needle-felting kits to sell too. The purses I was selling used fleece material as their foundation material I used their design as the guide for machine felting yarn on for more textile interest, creating a whole new fabric. Some had purse handles made from braiding fleece strips and yarn together, sewn on. Some smaller purses had zipper closures.

Fleece/Yarn machine felted purse (holding my knitting)

Machine needle-felted material from yarn on craft felt - made into zippered purse

  

One of the fleece foundational designs with yarns to embed by machine felting

One of the finished fleece machine felted purses

Needle-felted flower added to a wet-felt hat with crocheted edging

Halloween Costumes

Monte and me were going to be going to a birthday party - one of his geology comrades. I "Thread Painted" (free-motion machine embroidery) a Serpentinite picture for him over a photo transfer and matted it for him. But then the party was canceled, which was a good thing ... Dawson along with Splarah and her sister Abby came wanting me to help them sew their Halloween Costumes.

I can't tell you their character names: TV/Movie characters I don't know about. Dawson pretty much sewed his own. Splarah was making Christmas presents - sewing double layer fleece blankets on my sewing machine. And there's no way Abby and them could have made her costume - it was even challenging for me! and I'm an expert seamstress, having made my own clothes since I was a teenager and used to make Monte's jeans, and suits, shirts, etc.

They found a picture on the internet - Dawson blew it up to proportionately fit the front panel of Abbey's costume and we printed it in pieces and iron transferred them to material. Anyway, come evening, we got everything done. Whew!

I don't think I've taken a picture of the Serpentinite thread painted picture. This is the second one I've done - the first for Monte, which we gave to Jensimil who was returning to Norway and really wanted it - so we gifted it to him. I need to do another for Monte's partner Stan for Christmas, and then another one for Monte.

Bleach Painting T-shirts

Painting with bleach on T-shirts - Dawson, Splarah, Sarah, and Travis

My sons just posted pics on Facebook of an activity they did yesterday. I suppose we'd have been invited too if Monte wasn't needing to work. But I'm always glad to see family togetherness. I shared the painting with bleach technique with them awhile back. I've overdyed (bleached), like tie-dying, an already painted Tee to great affect too and stamped with bleach. I sometimes use my dye thickener, sodium alginate (sp?) added to bleach. Do this in a well-ventilated space - like outside! Rinse well and wash. If left too long bleach will eat at the fibers.

Early Fall Happenings

Fall has hit. It's been an extended season this year of warmth, so tomatoes, peppers, and beans didn't freeze until the other night. I had them extended for ripening warmth with the white "floating row covers" (remay cloth), and occasionally covering with blankets on borderline nights. Other than kale, chinese cabbage, and chard, my outdoor gardening season is done. Now for mother nature to do her thing with tucking in the scattered flower seeds for new growth next year, and stronger root development for the perennials.

Torkel, my felted tree-hugging Tomte

My last color/design challenge for my class was using Tetrad colors of the Color Wheel. It was a busy month with garden harvest, readying the greenhouse for winter, and LOTS of company! Needless to say, at the last minute I decided felting was my thing I could do, producing something! ... Thinking ... I looked at my favorite sculpted needlefelted head, still needing a body and finishing. His skin colors chose my tetrad colors: blue-green, violet, red-orange, and yellow. You'd think the face is orange, green and gray, but no, not when compared with the 4-in-1 color tool. Since tetrad is a square of double complementary colors, I was thinking square - like plaid, for his coat. So I finished Torkel, my tree-hugging elf (or Swedish Tompte).

In the above picture are vased zinnias, brought Saturday by my friend Marty. We had a houseful that day. Various peoples have come to help cut wood, taking some home for themselves, so Saturday was the Johnson's day. Dawson and Splarah came, Gary, and our house guest Michael, who cooked the supper main dish (he's now in a place of his own closer to his new job). I've not gathered many flowers to dry this year, not thinking I'm making anything with them, but did gather some, so that's pictured, along with the "pumpkins?" behind (volunteer squash we don't know for sure what they are, but as I posted on my kitchen blog, I'm still roasting the seeds and using them as pumpkins).

The round circle is the broken glass.

I was just upstairs checking on my home brews and heard a crash, expecting it to be something in the greenhouse. SHOCK! The middle window in the dining area was broken - the outer one of a two-glass window. The culprit still there, most likely stunned, so not flying away. His victim lay dead. So what happened?  What I've identified as a Sharp-shinned or Cooper's Hawk was chasing a chickadee for it's meal, and they both bashed into the window. Because it was stunned it stood around for a long time for me to capture many pics!

The hawk and broken glass fallen between two-glass window

Sharp-shinned or Cooper's Hawk?

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Wood cutting. We like burning aspen - our "hardest" wood for longer burning

Cleaned the back porch corner for extra wood storage

Wood storage by front door with ore buckets, etc

Collecting Seeds & Rubber Stamped Seed Packet

The garden is winding down. Normally we've had a frost by now, wiping out all the tender plants like beans, basil, squash and tomatoes, and then some flowers. Indian Summer will kick in with it's warmth for another month or so, and an occasional snow storm. This is the warmest September ever and we've not had rain for over a month, but a few spits. My watering keeps things going, but I'd planted more salady seeds for producing on into the late fall, but it's like the ground wicks away moisture instantly from the surface, so not many of the seedlings have sprouted yet. Monte and me covered tender plants a couple nights when temps threatened, and that saved them.

I've been collecting seeds from flowers I like to replant next year, starting seedlings in the early spring in my greenhouse. Like I've grown black hollyhocks for years and keep planting more and more - as biennials they do need to be replanted, but mine also keep reseeding. The calendulas sometimes reseed, I collect their seeds to. This year I'm collecting more. Like I like how the hyssop adds it's purple flowering at differing times than the flowering sage May Night and too, catnip. Another I collected is a perennial that my friend Marty wants to see if she can get started - I don't remember it's name.

Years ago I bought a rubber stamp that's like a seed package. I've given seeds as gifts using this stamp. As you see in the picture, you'd fold the paper and glue the tabs to make a seed packet. And I cut out the window - I enclose the seeds in snack-size zip bag and push the bag into the packet, then the seeds don't fall out, but you can see them. My daughter-in-love Sarah, recently stamped some for her gift-giving and used a multiple colored stamp pad. It looked great, so I'm going to be doing that too.

I'm posting pictures of some of the flowers I'm collecting seeds from.

Primary Colors

My last month's challenge for my color and design class was using triads on the color wheel. At first I thought I'd do tertiary colors, but kept coming back to the primaries: red, yellow, blue. I did some researching. My first thoughts went to kids and crayola crayons, then cartoons - like looking at Dick Tracy. But then one of my art books, Itten - The Elements of Color, had a chapter titled "Form and Color", saying colors and forms have expressive values. I guess somewhere in time past the three primary colors were given three primary forms - square, triangle, and circle.

Itten said, the square, characterized by horizontals and verticals includes the cross, the rectangle and their derivatives. It corresponds to red. It symbolizes matter. The triangle owes its nature to three intersecting diagonals, including the rhombus, trapezoid, zig-zag, and their derivatives. It is the symbol of thought. The circle and it's derivatives generate a feeling of relaxation and smooth motion. It is the symbol of the spirit. Reading that made me think of the Trinity. Anyway I mulled over design compositions all month.

My teacher had said at the first class that once a student brought a basket of produce for her show-and-tell. Well it was one of those months! what with gardening demands and company, I was just about to bring a basket of produce, or something. The last day, I pulled out all my craft felt three primary color possibilities and started cutting out varieties of the three primary shapes and started machine needle felting ... something. I put a shiny stripy material over it and the machine did not like that - it shredded the material and broke some of the needles, but I liked the effect it added. I put some blue tulle over all that and needled it in too.

It's ok ... a study. It kinda created itself as I got going and just let it take shape. Kinda the way life feels at times ... things happen at the last moments, not within my control and my timing of how I want it to be.

Monte's Art Quilt

My last color design class challenge was with analogous colors. I've been doing t-shirts and thread painting with a picture taken of a serpentinite rock slab Monte has. I print the picture from my computer, through the ink-jet printer, onto iron-on transfer paper. I decided to have it be my base "material" for the art quilt, along with a photo of a rock formation reflection Monte took in Norway. Then I printed some other photos reflecting tools and scenes from his geology world.

Serpentinite is like the origin of life substance (Monte of course would say this differently). It's related to the oil world. Origin relates to DNA. When Googling DNA, I saw lots of spiraling images, so was thinking spiral or diagonal when laying out the images. When taking geologist/scientists on a field trip through California, Monte took a picture of an oil bubble, capturing his and Stan's reflection in the bubble. I put the bubble image somewhat in the center.

So the dominant analogous color is green shades with some blue as accents. Then I printed a saying he's had in his office for years -

 
"Little boys who pick up rocks 

either go to prison or become geologists.

"Geologists are Boy Scouts who hated to give up camping

when they went to college, so they majored in geology.

"A geologist listens to more silly questions

than any other human, and he must

weigh each answer with the greatest of skill.

"Have pity on him. He's just as lonesome as he looks,

He'd love to tell you everything he knows, 

but he doesn't know how."

I was going to dye some material to add to the composition, but decided the photo image materials were enough. After stitching it all together I couched a variegated green yarn around each picture - this is the "quilting" thru the layers. There is a bamboo batting and a camo material backing. I crocheted a long "string" and attached it all around as the edging. I was going to crochet a lot of rectangles with the yarn to fill in the edges making it a total rectangle, but Monte likes it best with it's funky perimeter.

Garden Pics

Our backyard from the roof

Clematis and Black Hollyhocks

Clematis entwining crab apple tree

Echinacea

Heirloom Hollyhocks

Kale and Lettuce

Calendula in midst of carrots and lettuce

I love gardening. But our first frost is around the corner ...