So yesterday, I wrote about what felting is, and promised to go on to what you really are doing when using the “felting” needles to push fibers thru some other material.

Needle Punching, or as it is currently probably better know, Miniature Punch Needle Embroidery, for a long time. Not, perhaps as long as felting, but “pretty close”.

Since you already know that Clover is one of my favorite Needle Crafts Tool makers, so here is the obligatory “tool picture” – As with all their products, The Clover Punch Embroidery tool works well for 95% of what I want to do and is reasonably priced.

Needle punching is pushing something from one side of a ground cloth to another. On a larger scale, you may be familiar with the Rug making techniques such as Hooking (PULLING the fabric or yarn or other material from the front/right side facing you or PRODDING, which is PUSHING from back – right side away from you.

When you try to “Needle Felt” with fabric, yarns or threads that do not have the necessary follicles to twist, tangle, mesh and compact, you can’t felt. So you are PUNCHING.

Punching is a WONDERFUL way to embellish, you just need to understand that for a wearable or other object that will be “used” – you will need to use some of the many techniques which exist to “stabilize” the loops/threads/bits of everything from Angelina to Zoo sheddings of needle punching, such as iron-on fusibles or special glues even sometimes for punch needle embroidery, just packing the threads tightly. Without these measures, if you pull on the yarn, thread or even fibers, unless they are able to be felted, they will pull out and frankly “rather easily”.

Part III will be about the tools I use “most of the time”

HTH

Wheat

Playing yet another Name Game,

It would seem I am possessed this year with this whole “what’s in a name thing”

But I really prefer when correct names are used unless one is intending to be Entertaining (i.e., I call my blog entries, Blog-A-Mentaries and fellow Blog writers, Blog-A-Venturers, cause you never know what is going to happen.

So, while the introduction over the last few years of attachments and machines – has been great

EXCEPT the almost epidemic of misuse of the functions served by these tools, it is just making me somewhat crazy

Felting is the process by which the follicles found on WOOL (from many animal/protein fibers, but most easily Sheep) are somehow encouraged to wrap around each other.

For WET Felting, there are basically three things needed.
1. A Solution (soapy water works best, but you can do it with even Tap Water) so that the fibers can be encouraged to expand making the follicles “stand out” a bit.
2. Agitation, so they can be encouraged to wrap around each other.
3. Finally Temperature Change, so those expanded follicles not only go back to their original “closed”, but are “set” in their new twisted, meshed, compacted configuration.

DRY Felting, although much less messy and requiring a fair bit more work, essentially tries to do the same thing, but without water/solutions.

Dry Felting is accomplished by the pushing and PULLING of those follicles by the tiny barbs on “felting needles” – creating tangling so that the necessary twisting, meshing and as a result, compacting of the fiber into some form of fabric or 3D shape like my little friend Piccolo pictured here.

Now I know it has become “politically correct” to refer to thread as Fibers, but I do not. WHY because Fibers are really what makes up a yarn or thread or FELT fabric before it undergoes any sort of spinning process to create yarn and threads.

Bottom line …

without that twisting/tangling/meshing compacting you are not making Felt,
you are not Needle FELTING

So what are you doing? Felting, Punching or A Combination, better called

Embellishing & XPressing yourself

Check back in a day or two.

What’s in a name …
and would it really smell so sweet by any other name …

I don’t think so, although it is kinda cool to refer to ourselves as designers, more and more lately I have been questioning that self-designation.

If there is one particular black hole (did I ever mention my life long fascination with all things cosmic?)
in cyberspace where I can easily get lost for hours, it would be Style.com’s fashion show collections

I always emerge wondering, not only am I really qualified to claim the title, and what about all the submission that cross my desk?

So what is design? Design, according to Wikipedia,

is usually considered in the context of the applied arts, engineering, architecture, and other such creative endeavours, is used as both a noun and a verb. As a verb, “to design” refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, or component.

and then goes on to say:

As a noun, “a design” is used for both the final (solution) plan (e.g. proposal, drawing, model, description) or the result of implementing that plan (e.g. object produced, result of the process). …

Wikipedia defines Designer as
a broad term for a person who designs any of a variety of things. That usually implies the task of creating or of being creative in a particular area of expertise. It is frequently used to reference someone who draws or in some ways uses visual cues to organize their work. Designers are usually responsible for making a model that takes into consideration each step in a product’s development, including not only how a product will be used but also how it will be made.

Which leads to the final paragraph under Designer:

Designing normally requires a designer considering aesthetic, functional, and many other aspects of an object or process, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design.

Which now has me asking, almost daily and sometimes hourly, not only of every piece I do “for me” but of any that “will be published”

It that pattern or project the work of a Designer or an Alteration Specialist?

Or something else?

Just something to think about – I certainly will be – and who knows, maybe writing more about it.

Wheat

P.S. Am I the only one who thinks the folks at Alexander McQueen may have over reacted just a bit to either Phantom of the Opera, or the current controversy over the responsiblity of the Fashion Designers to discourage eating disorders. I mean several of those dresses are perfect examples of why I don’t wear dancercise clothes out side my own home or backyard (and not very often in the back yard either)