catrinasoleifiberart

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Failures

I'm almost all caught up on everything I've done so far, so I'm going to lump everything else into a single post. Because in one way or another, it didn't work.

Needle felting is a shockingly recent art form. A lot of the edges are still new. So I tried new things, experimented to see what would happen.

Experiment number 1

First up felting directly on to a crocheted garment. You can felt onto a felted garment - in fact that's often what people do, wet felt the large sections, then dry felt detail. But I don't have enough space for wet felting. So I thought - maybe I'll try onto crochet.

The problem with this is that although it did work, it would only really work going forward for one-sided items. This scarf now has a back. But I will say that it largely didn't impede the stitches like I thought it would, so I want to do more felting on to crochet, but with one-sided items like hats, bags, and gloves.

Experiment number 2

Next was wool felted patches. I am aware that you can felt onto things like wool coats, and I am aware that you can prime felt using wet felting so that it doesn't shrink so much in the wash, so I decided to do some experimenting with if you could wool felt a patch on to a denim or other cotton garment. It would make for much easier, but still very cool patches if so. My thought was that I would needle felt the design on to the clothes, then wet felt to set the wool in place and allow it to shrink in a controlled way. Then, because this is an experiment, the last step would be to throw it in the wash to see what happens.

... So there's this line in the Bible about not mixing fibers of your clothes and uuuhhh... yeah don't do that. It's bad.

The pants were pre-shrunk denim, the wool hadn't been welt felted thoroughly enough to not shrink in the wash, so it shrunk so unevenly that it tore a hole in the pants.

I'm going to keep experimenting with this, but for now, wool patches are a dry clean only kind of fix. I think the real trick would be to felt a full patch, then machine wash it, then stitch the patch in place, but even then it may shrink unevenly compared to the rest of the garment.

#needle felting #fiber art #experiments #art experiments #wool felting #felting #original

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Long discussion about art, stress, and money, after the cut, but if you just want to see a fun felted picture, here's a painting I recently did at a workshop. We only had two hours to work, which for me was very good because I can often get very slow trying to get all my lines just right.

I started this blog with the best of intentions. A lot of the content I see from felters is either first timers, or people who've been doing it for years and have already perfected their craft. I'm neither. I've been doing it for a couple of years, I know some tricks but not all, and I wanted to share that progress, show off those awkward teenage years for my fellow felters.

I almost immediately tripped. Even the months that I was posting during were a struggle: I'd had a bout of medical debt and then my partner lost their job. It took a lot of community support to get through those leans months of deep debt on half our income. But we made it to 2024 with hope on the horizon.

Hope did not last.

We had severe weather which impacted my job, and then before that was over there was a death in the family, and then before that was over I got very ill, and then ill again with something even worse, and then and then and then... In many ways, 2024 was much better than 2023. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. In many ways, it was much, much worse. I had $1,800 of medical debt in 2023, and it took about a dozen people's help to get through it. The trip to the emergency room last month was $2,500 all on its own.

Stress is not conducive to creativity. I've been having to claw my way out of getting aggravated as my work continues to not be as good as I want it to be. But my Flying Free series is actually important, and it needs to get done whether I want to work on it or not.

So I'm going to start sharing the finished pieces, both as a motivation for myself to get through them, and as an excuse to talk about why art is important, even when it's hard.

#fiber art #needle felting #wool painting #original #felting #wool felting #long post #talking about stress #talking about art

[catrinasoleifiberart]

what cute lil guys

little needle felted brugs!!! 🐛🐛🍰

#bugs #needle felting #fiber art #reblog #felted animals

[catrinasoleifiberart]

It's been a really long time since I posted anything, partly because I am catching up to the present and partly because I had a bought of artist block. So here's a sketch dump of what I'm working on currently.

#needle felting #fiber art #wool painting #original #felted animals #bird pics #rough draft #work in progress

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Needle felt plushie bori! ✨ Featuring real button eyes!

He will be up for sale when I open my shop in the new year 💖

#needle felting #fiber art #reblog #felted... animals?

[catrinasoleifiberart]

I make felt things.

I dont have an official online shop yet, but I'm sick of my brain telling me I'm not allowed to share anything until I can consider myself a "professional."

Some of my work:

Commissions open - message me if you're interested!

#needle felting #wet felting #wool art #reblog

[catrinasoleifiberart]

happy halloween

Repostober Day 31: A little felted pumpkin patch plus a pumpkin snail and a cute lil scarecrow I made around last year :D AND I COMPLETED AN OCTOBER CHALLENGE YEE!!! 🎃🎃🎃

#felting #needle felting #fiber art #reblog

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest Part 4

Last one! Also it's twice as big. This is Saddle Rock, if you're familiar. I redid the sky way late in the process which was extremely annoying.

Buy prints of my art at:

Wool isn't very tasty. Buy me a ko-fi

#needle felting #fiber art #wool painting #original #pacific northwest #mountaiins #wildflowers

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Two little octopus down, five more to go!

Just a small project to keep myself busy.

🐙 Red velvet

🐙 Banana Sunday

#needle felting #fiber art #octopus #desserts #reblog

[catrinasoleifiberart]

finally finished this little man after 2 years of art block lol! I lov u leaf dragon my childe

#needle felting #dragon #fiber art #autumn #reblog

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Needle felted beetles // KarryBird

#needle felting #fiber art #reblog #felted animals #beetles

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest Part 3

I get the most compliments on this one. Tell ya what though y'all vanishing point perspective is fuckin hard. Buy prints of my art at:

Wool isn't very tasty. Buy me a ko-fi

#needle felting #fiber art #wool painting #original #pacific northwest #bridge #vanishing point

[catrinasoleifiberart]

😮 So scary! I don't know who this tiny friend is but I love them

Oh? What's this...?

A little animal, on the grounds of my yard—!

Oh! I think I startled it! I've gotta be careful; that "spear" looks rather sharp—!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

I needle-felted a tiny slugcat yesterday, and if you ask me, it came out SO cute! Below the cut are some more pictures of it to show off some angles and poses (featuring one of my felting needles as a "spear"):

This was actually my second attempt at making a pocket-sized generic/Survivor slugcat (fourth overall needle felted slugcat attempt), where I mainly tried to improve the proportions. Here are some comparison pictures with my first mini Survivor (left):

I hope you like this little guy — I certainly love it! And my hope is to someday needle felt all the main slugcats (plus maybe Nightcat and Enot). Some might be difficult (probably Gourmand and Saint), but I'm up to the challenge if it produces more adorable tiny wool friends!

Also, I've been trying to get back in the swing of needle-felting, so let me know if you would like to see more of it on this blog!

#needle felting #fiber art #felted... animals? #reblog

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest 2

As I mentioned in 1, you can buy prints of these works at

Personally. This is my favorite. It's the Yakima River, which I've pinic'ed on many times. I love the gloss on the water, the way the medium makes the basalt sing. This was a joy to work on.

Since these are partly a catalogue of my journey, I should mention that my partner helped a little. I've gotten into the habit, as a result of this piece, of turning a completely finished project to my partner and saying, "okay, what is it that you think I'm still working on" and partner will invariably say something which winds up improving the piece. For this one, it was the shading under the shrub covered island. Always get a second pair I'd eyes on your work.

Wool isn't very tasty. Buy me a ko-fi:

#fiber art #needle felting #original #landscape #wool painting #pacific northwest #river

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Froggy enjoying his bath

https://chelsfelts.etsy.com

#needle felting #fibre arts #frog #wool art #onsen #reblog

[catrinasoleifiberart]

Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest

By the way, since this series is fully original, I feel comfortable now saying that you can buy prints of my work at

My first original in the PNW series was a waterfall. Not a smart idea, this was extremely difficult. But I think the digital copy turned out even better than the original for this one.

This is Umptanum Falls btw, and although I recommend the hike, I never actually made it to the basin because to my knowledge the only way down is to just climb the sheer rock wall surrounding it.

Please tip me so I can support my art habit.

#fiber art #needle felting #original #pacific northwest #wool painting

[catrinasoleifiberart]

I had five tutorials and six sheets, sooo...

So this is my first original painting. It's the cliff shores of Yachats, Oregon. They're black, which I thought would be boring, so I did something experimental and painted them in magenta pink instead, to contrast against the water that is actually that color though.

Does this work? Tough to say. No matter what I can't seem to get the perspective right, but at some point I needed to be done. I think you can see that I was drawing a lot on what I'd learned from Landscapes in Wool. The fluffy clouds, the white-capped water, working from dark to light. Jaana Mattson's book was so helpful for teaching foundational skills.

#fiber art #needle felting #original #wool painting #pacific northwest #ocean #impressionism