Have A Boll

Did ya know that Tennessee is known for it's cotton crops. According to a local publication it one of the nations top upland cotton growers, providing up too 95% of the US cotton production. 

The southern part of our state has many farms that still grow this staple.

A few weeks ago I discovered cotton roving,ya know the stuff they make thread from. I had never actually seen it until now. It looks just like the cotton you pull from your medication bottles. Except its is brightly colored ,a little more soft and comes in really long skinny batts (actually this is how you find it in the medicine bottles too..ha..ha..).

From left to right the colors are Pansy Gardens,Blue Waves and Meadow

From the feel of it I knew that it would felt differently than regular wool roving or fleeces.It had no poof like other wool, which makes sense as wool roving/fleeces is hair from an animal and this was plant matter.

This picture taken from cover of'
Tennessee Home and Farm  Fall 2013' magazine

It almost does look and feel just like what you see in this boll. Except of coarse that the black seeds have been removed ,the cotton has been dyed.& processed.

It needle felted flat. Which I think will make interesting landscape pictures.

It also, kept its puncture marks where the needle(s) went in. Regular wool will re-poof and close back up. It will be interesting to see how it felts with other types of roving/ fleeces. 

Typically, it is sold as cotton roving to make yarn/thread through spinning. But I like trying interesting products in my fiber art , you never know where a wonderful gem will turn up. This could be it. I have some new colors ways on order, and plan on making a couple of landscapes before adding it into my purse making. 

My supplier did note that that it is not colorfast(colors may bleed when wet), so it probably wouldn't work well in my clutches unless I can fix this issue. 

If your looking for a new product to try , give this one a shot. I purchased it from 

www.robinjedmundson.etsy.com

As always have fun, and  Be Unique...Be Inspired... Be Yourself

-TNfrmgrl

Bracelets, Washers & New Clutches

Okay, Sorry about it being so long between posts, somehow I was locked out of site and it has taken me until today to figure out how to get back in.







A couple of new clutches have been created in the last few weeks. The Jungle Boogie Giraffe Clutch.

And this one that is still unnamed.
I have also been working on bracelets for this fall, made from patches of crazy quilted fabric.

These bracelets will have snap, button or elastic to hold them on. Still working out the dynamics of it all.They will also be embellished up with buttons, beads, stitchery etc.





Some fun new alcohol inked and
glossed washers have made it in to the mix of things I have been working on. These are some of my favorites, as the inks on them have created some really cool effects. I researched loads of tutorials on using these inks before I actually started using them. Many had the same cool star-burst or blotchy spot effects. But after playing with them They are easily versatile if you can work with them quickly, creating different designs in the inks. some of my favorite choices are using metallic additives and glitter glue mixed in with the inks. Also canned air is a wonderful tool to dry some areas faster while others are still wet.  Normally my necklaces are wire wrapped with beading, however these are so cool on their own, I think I will just paper the back and call them done.

Look for the bracelets getting done in the next post.
As always enjoy,
-TNfrmgrl

Big Beaded Earrings and Dispaly

Are you a multi-crafter? Doing more than one thing at a time, or love ALL crafts? I DO! This weekend I was making Big Beaded Earrings. Hubby asks if I am going to sell them on my shop. I replied 'Well I think I would have some competition as there are over 300,000 + already there. No honey, these are just for me' :) Love interactions like that.
I did tell him, maybe I would sell them at craft shows. Who knows.

Made this cute hanger from a paper style luggage container and some wire. It will make a great craft fair display. Actually have several of this style in different sizes and patterns. They were given to me as a gift, never really knew what to use for until now. I will probably add another row of wire. It was just wrapped and tied inside, very easy to do.You could wrap it all the way around and have a double sided display.However, you wouldn't be able to stash over stock inside.

Earrings are Victorian in colors, looks very  circa 1800 against the tote.

Just something fun for Monday.

-TNfrmgrl

Putting up Pickles

Though not necessarily a craft, it defiantly is an art to learn how to can your own homegrown foods. This weekend we put up several jars of homemade pickles. YUM!

 The ones on the left and here in the large picture are from a recipe found at 
Ball Canning & Recipe site http://www.freshpreserving.com called Kosher Dill Pickle Chunks. They used the Ball Kosher Dill Pickle Mix, smelled very yummy while heating up, hope they taste as well as it smelled.The brine is very light golden almost clear yellow.

 The ones shown here on the right are Garlicky Dill Pickles Spears. A general recipe that was a combination of several I had but were basically the same. The had a hand mixed spice mixture added to each jar of garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, dill seed and peppercorns.  With a  cider vinegar, salt & water brine. This brine was deep dark golden. I didn't have black peppercorns, so I used a mixture of red/black/green. Don't know if it will make a huge difference, but they sure look pretty in the jars.

Only had one small incident , one of my pint Garlicky Dill jars busted the bottom out when placed in the water bath.  It was hard loosing all the small pretty cucumbers, but safety first. I had checked all my jars when I washed them, but sometimes you just never know when one will crack.
I ended up with 4 quarts, and three pints all together. Enough for my pickle habit and to share. 

We picked a few more blackberries(last of the season), will make cobbler from these. Peppers finally coming on. The corn, if we can keep the coons from wreaking havoc on it may finish making in the next week or so. One was caught and transplanted to the other side of the mountain last night , but we know were there is one the are probably more. 
-TNfrmgrl

R& R Part 2 : Heading toward the end

Working on getting these wall hangings made. This week has been focused on making the hangers for the 'Bluebird' piece and a smaller  abstract one that hangs on my inspiration board.

I choose to wire wrap my Rose of Sharon twigs after they dried out for several days.  The 'Bluebird' hanger is about 17" long and made up of 4 twigs.It is wrapped with a tarnish resistant copper core #22 green  wire.  Wiring is only in the center of twigs, leaving about 5' open on the edges to hang other embellishment on.

This piece is the smaller piece unnamed as of yet, that hangs on my inspiration board. it was a wrapped with a nickle plated copper wire #26 multiple times and beaded with 4 glass beads in brown and teal. its back is was left unfinished so the needle felting is seen on both sides, however wool base is very thick so the felting is light. hanger is about 9" and the NF piece is about 7" wide.


The 'Fire & Ice' is not finished as of yet. I have been looking for a frame that will be suitable for it. I really wanted it to be rustic , finding one has been difficult  so I am leaning toward making my own. Possible woods I am looking at are Tulip, Walnut and or Cedar.  Cedar is a good choice, it naturally repels moths  making it a great  wood for wool based fiber arts. Tulip has a cool smooth light toned bark, where as Walnut has a nice ripple effect in larger branches, smaller ones have a slight ripple but not as defined as a more mature branch. there are loads of choices to chose from at the farm so we will see what we can find.



Back to the 'Bluebird' piece stitching was done to reattached the wool to the reverse side and cover the stabilizer. I machine stitched using a free stitch pattern all the way around then trimmed as needed.
a sleeve  was hand stitched on the back to attach it to the hanger with several pieces on twisted wire.

 

Next I added embellishment fibers to keep with the bird nest theme. These were hand-stitched in a random pattern, knotted and beaded in places along the top and sides.

The twig hanger was attached.

Finished attaching the hanger to the piece, added a few more hidden beads. Simple but I like it.

Stay tuned for the "Fire & Ice' fiber art wall hanging as I'll post when I get it finished. this ends the 

Re-purpose and Recycle post , at least for now.           -TNfrmgrl