Cochineal+madder+walnut in fiber manipulation

Natural colors in natural textures – fiber manipulation/sculpture technique, developed by me. ©

Poetry of fibers

When colors are taken away, and you get to experience the very poetry of each fiber..

 

 

 

Becoming a character

I like to intimate the stories with my felt and the way I take photos with it. And I liked the idea of someone else continuing these stories from my photos when Lyse whom I met on Etsy asked me if she could use some of my photos for her creative works in her Imaginary World – ImagineStudio.

That’s how me with my felts became a character – Girl with the Golden Earing

…Homage to Claudel
 

The Wave

What’s in the color?

Just the other day reading the book I found a more “tangible” and scientific explanation of how the colors influence us.

"Clearly, there is more to colour than meets the eye as even blind people can literally ‘feel’ different colours with their fingertips.

Colour is not just part of the object we see in the distance, it's a light wave coming right at us. Colour is simply energy. Energy influencing our feelings, our well being, and demanding a response.” A.Wright

If color is energy, probably there’s much more encoded in this energy from the plants and therefore we have such different experiences when facing a live color from the plant rather than a “dead” synthetic color.

 

Dyed with St. John’s wort.

White wedding

Autumn has traditionally been a season for weddings in our country. Perhaps that’s why I get most of custom orders for weddings in late August and September.

I have always admired the brides who are searching for something really original, even unusual, handmade and natural. Be it a dress or a wedding bouquet. I know there are tons of gorgeous and luxurious wedding gowns for lease in wedding salons, but… these dresses have always pushed me away with their synthetic fabrics, lack of uniqueness and handmade feeling. Especially when you try to imagine it used by a person for the celebration that is supposed to be the most honest, open, one of a kind in one’s life…

Feel felt felt feeling. Nuno felted wedding gown by Viltė Kazlauskaitė

 

It’s really nice to notice that there are more and more brides who take this natural and unique approach to their weddings. You might ask so where is that point of eco-friendliness if more and more brides would not lease a wedding gown in a salon for one day but would have it created just for her? Well, I think it would be much more eco-friendly to repurpose a wedding gown after the wedding to many useful and beautiful pieces of clothing or accessories or save that unique dress for the daughter or grand daughter compared to all chemical cleaning dresses in salons require.

 

Feel felt felt feeling. Nuno felted wedding gown by Viltė Kazlauskaitė

Anyhow, it’s all a question of choice. Every bride who chooses me to design a dress for her is very different and amazing in her own way. I see them prepare for one of the most important moments in their life and hear the story of how they came to this point of choosing this and not that. So with this post I wanted to make a mini overview of some important aspects for weddings when you choose to do it in a natural and unique way. And I’d like to look at our local artists and artisans this time.

 

Wedding rings. Adding something really dear to it, like a detail of fingerprints of your beloved one, choosing more organic shapes and details, putting a piece of simple beach stone that means something for you rather than diamonds, or putting a stone on the side that only you can see – all those little things make  huge difference…

 

by Jurgita Erminaitė Šimkuvienė

 

by Ugnė Blažytė

 

by Eglė Čėjauskaitė

 

 

by Jurgita Erminaitė Šimkuvienė

 

 

Flowers… the flowers I chose grow in our country – in a wild or in grandmothers’ gardens. They represent beauty, fragility, lightness of feminine nature.

 

White peonies

Heath

or even wild madder! (photo credit from Madara cosmetics)

 

I wish I could show you really unique and elegant shoes for the brides, designed by Lithuanian shoe designers, but… As every bride I met had most troubles finding shoes for her, I had the same trouble searching in the internet for our local shoe designers and.. I am afraid nothing really impressed me..or I was not lucky in my search. So I guess our brides will still have to be content with whatever they choose - high fashion shoes from Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik or Jimmy Choo; elegant dance shoes or…everything else, just waiting for a new generation of local shoe designers to grow up and knock us back.

 

Wedding photography… it’s for my next post.

 

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Ruduo – vestuvių metas nuo senų laikų. Galbūt todėl baigiantis vasarai ir prasidedant Rugsėjui gaunu daugiausiai užsakymų vestuvėms.

Visada žavėjausi nuotakomis, kurios planuodamos savo vestuves renkasi originalumą, netgi neįprastumą, natūralumą, tikrumą. Ar tai būtų vestuvinė suknelė, ar gėlių puokštė.

Mane visuomet atstumdavo saloninės nuomojamos vestuvinės suknelės. Taip, žinau, kad ten pilna labai ištaigingų ir gražių, puošnių suknelių. Bet jų dažniausiai sintetinės medžiagos, rankų darbo jausmo ir unikalumo trūkumas veja mane tolyn nuo jų, ypač kai įsivaizduoji, kad tokią suknelę moteris renkasi vilkėti tą savo gyvenimo dieną, kuri turėtų būti nuoširdžiausia, atviriausia, tikriausia, vienatinė jos gyvenime…

Ir tiesą pasakius džiugu stebėti, jog bėgant laikui tokių moterų, kurios pasirenka originalų, rankų darbo, natūralų kelią savo vestuvėms, daugėja. Galite paklausti, kur gi čia tas ekologiškumas, jei kiekviena moteris siūdinsis vestuvinę suknelę, o ne nuomosis. Bet aš manau, kad vestuvinės suknelės “perkūrimas” po vestuvių į daugelį kitų originalių ir mielų širdžiai aprangos detalių, aksesuarų ar kitų dalykų; ar galiausiai tokios vienetinės suknelės saugojimas savo dukteriai ar anūkei, yra daug ekologiškiau palyginus su visa chemija, kuri naudojama saloninių suknelių švarinimui ir atnaujinimui.

Žinoma, visa tai yra pasirinkimo reikalas. Kiekviena nuotaka, kuriai aš kūriau vestuvinę suknelę, skirtinga ir žavi kiekviena savo būdu. Aš matau, kaip jos ruošiasi vienai svarbiausių savo švenčių ir klausau jų istorijų, kaip jos priėmė sprendimą rinktis būtent tai, ką pasirinko. Šiuo įrašu dienoraštyje norėjau tiesiog turmpai apžvelgti keletą svarbių vestuvių aspektų, kurie buvo svarbūs ir mano sutiktom nuotakom. Ir norėčiau pasižiūrėti į mūsų vietinių kūrėjų ir vietinės gamtos kuriamus ir dovanojamus dalykus…

 

Vestuviniai žiedai. Maži dalykai turi didelę reikšmę. Mylimojo pirštų ar delno antspaudų detalė ant žiedo, jūros akmenėlis, kuris turi jauniesiems svarbią reikšmę, o ne deimantas, ar akmenėlis ten, kur jį mato tik mūvintis žiedą, organiškos formos, faktūros…

 

Lietuvoje augančios gėlės vestuvinei puokštei – balti bijūnai močiutės gėlynėlyje, laukiniai viržiai ar net lipikai iš pievų. Visi jie simbolizuoja moteriško prado grožį, trapumą ir stiprumą, lengvumą…

 

Labai norėjau surasti unikalius ir elegantiškus vestuvinius batelius, kurtus lietuvių batų dizainerių, bet…kaip ir visos mano sutiktos nuotakos turėjo daugiausiai problemų ieškodamos batelių, taip ir aš nesugebėjau internete rasti nieko tokio iš lietuvių meistrų, kas iš tiesų pakerėtų savo originalumu, elegantiškomis linijomis.. O galbūt man tiesiog nepasisekė ieškoti. Tad panašu, jog mūsų nuotakos turės tenkintis tuo, ką pasirinks – aukštosios mados atstovų nepriekaištingus batus (Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo), elegantiškus šokėjų batelius, ar…visa kita tol, kol užaugs nauja lietuvių batų dizainerių karta ir savo kūriniais tiesiog nustebins mus visus.

 

Vestuvių fotografija… palikime tai kitam įrašui. :)

From scrap

I am sure that every feltmaker has bags or boxes full of scrap of felt from previous projects.  These are like caskets of treasures. There’s no doubt felt has a great potential for being a sustainable textile. One of the aspects of its sustainability is of course its raw nature – it keeps the number of textile processing steps at the minimum, involves renewable materials and eco-friendly “making”. The other aspect of felt being green is that you can use all the scrap, no matter how small it could be, until the last thread, the last fibre. You can felt it in, felt it on, sew it or even use for stuffing.

I’ve recently used some of my handmade felt scraps to create these textile cuffs by sewing felt and other fabric scraps by hand.

 

            Calligraphy in wool and rust. Chimes. Memory of time                                                    

 

 

Haiku

Growing Spring on my skin

  Fragile as the beauty can be. Tender sprouting of Spring on my skin.

Growing Spring on my skin

silk ponge, merino wool

eco dyed with plants

Gourmandis series

Texture texture again. Sometimes felt texture resembles food so much that you just make a break while felting and go to check your fridge. When I was editing these photos, I must confess I had my mouth watering...

Book cozy "Chocolate sin cake with cookie crumb"

Book cozy "Vanilla & caramel Dobos Torte"


Cowl "Chocolate Angel Food"

Into the woods series

Finished some scarfs and collars in modified shibori technique for my 2009 Autumn series "Into the woods". Very organic forms and natural colours bringing you deep into the woods...

Scarf "Into the woods. Blueberry"


Collar "Into the woods. Wetland"

Scarf "Into the woods. Moss"

Collar "Into the woods. Juniper"

The Sea

Nuno felt shawl "The Sea". Silk ponge, merino wool, silk

Here I came to the very edge
where nothing at all needs saying,
everything is absorbed through weather and the sea,
and the moon swam back,
its rays all silvered,
and time and again the darkness would be broken
by the crash of a wave,
and every day on the balcony of the sea,
wings open, fire is born,
and everything is blue again like morning

Pablo Neruda, It is Born

Wild Angels on Haute Nature

Haute Nature - blog, covering ecologically based creative ideas, art & green products for your children, home and lifestyle...an eco guide blending high style with sustainability, has featured my felted bracelet - Where the Wild Angels Live.

Thank you! And I am honoured!

Where the Wild Angels Live

European Street Team (Etsy) challenge that I am hosting will come to an end this evening. And my theme for all the members was Wild versus Elegant. This theme evolved naturally from my inside world.

I love wild, raw, natural, and chaotic... Prefer a wild mustang over a domesticated horse. Wildness symbolizes freedom for me. It's the energy that makes everything flow in the world.

I love elegancy, grace, I am always looking for it in any objects, materials. My understanding of elegancy is of course subjective and might seem weird sometimes. Usually wild and elegant are not considered to be a one. Usually man made objects that claim to be wild are lacking grace in their form; and the ones that claim to be elegant are too much polished and perfect, lacking a sense of freedom and natural life.

For me wild and elegant go together, one in another, entangled in each other... There is so much grace and elegancy in the wild world. It's just a question of how you look at it. 

My entry for the challenge is a bracelet felted from raw Drenthe Heath wool (no, it's not fur, it's felted fleece!), merino wool, silk and Baltic amber. Drenthe Heath has the strongest expression of wildness here, while the rest - merino wool, silk and amber combine wild and elegant nature in themselves.

It might look soft as a feather, but actually it is pretty rough (Drenthe Heath), and I love this combination between soft, gentle and rough, raw, wild... I called it

W h e r e t h e W i l d A n g e l s L i v e

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Kur gyvena laukiniai angelai. Apyrankė iš šilko, merinosų vilnos, Drenthe Heath vilnos ir baltiško gintaro.

Myliu tai, kas turi laukinę sielą, neapdirbtą prigimtį, tai, kas natūralu ir kiek chaotiška… Visuomet renkuosi laukinį laisvą mustangą, o ne ramų prijaukintą kuiną. Laukinė siela yra laisvė. Tai energija, kuri viską pasaulyje priverčia tekėti.

Myliu eleganciją, grakštumą. To ieškau visuose objektuose ar medžiagose aplink. Elegancija gan subjektyvi. Ir elegancija paprastai nėra tapatinama su laukiniškumu.  Žmonių pagaminti daiktai, siejami su laukiniškumu, paprastai stokoja grakštumo; o tie, kurie siejami su elegancija, dažnai būna per daug nušlifuoti, per daug tobuli, stokojantys net minčių apie laisvę ir natūralumą.

Laukinė siela ir elegancija man – viena su kita susipynusios išraiškos… Viskas priklauso nuo požiūrio ar…įžvalgos.

Bloom Rider

  Wedding veil B l o o m R i d e r. silk chiffon, merino wool, silk, banana silk yarn

Colors. We usually ask about favorite colors. And this simple question always confused me as it never looked simple to me. How can you have one favorite color? I like certain colors to look at, others - to wear, to use in my living space, certain colors for certain objects...And certain color as a philosophy of colors.
Colors are changing during the life. Some colors come and go, some always return, some you seam to hate but find yourself attracted to them after several years, and some you love and just can't bear any more of them after a while. Colors are flowing energies in life.
I usually had problems with working, wearing, looking at pink color in my life. It was one of the colors that wasn't so easy for me to accept. And just not so long ago I found I could appreciate it, I could find beauty in it, accept it and create with it.

"Pink is the color of universal love".
"Pink provides feelings of caring, tenderness, self-worth and love, acceptance".

I do hope it means I managed to embrace more of universal love..and accept (myself?)

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Spalvos yra įvairovė. Ir labai sunku nusakyti mėgstamiausią spalvą, kadangi vienos spalvos tinka dėvėti, lytėti, kitos žiūrėti ar būti jose…

Vienos spalvos patinka dabar, kitos anksčiau ar vėliau. Vienos spalvos ateina ir išeina, kitos – pasilieka visada.

Rožinė – ir vėl sunkoka spalva man… Tačiau kartais ateina laikas, kuomet sugebi įsiklausyti ir į šią spalvą, ją įvertinti, suprasti ir ja kurti.

Rašoma, jog rožinė – visuotinės meilės spalva, sukurianti švelnumo, globos jausmus, savo vertės suvokimą ir gebėjimą save mylėti, priimti.

Ar gebėjimas kurti rožine spalva reiškia, jog sugebi aprėpti daugiau visuotinos meilės ir.. priimti..(save?)

Dreams of a Wild Plum Tree

All shades of pink, blush colors are not the colors I feel comfortable working with usually. But when it comes to the blooming of trees in Spring - cherries, plums, apple-trees, almonds...aurora tones get some sacred, pure shine...

w i l d p l u m

...wild blooming trees is something I can't ever take my eyes off...





























Hand dyed silk chiffon (just a little rosy tones), softest merino wool, silk and banana fibers.

Pink, pale rosy tones, rust, plum, dark brown and white colors creating a feeling of a wild plum in bloom.
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Rožiniai tonai nėra tos spalvos, su kuriomis man lengva dirbti, tačiau pavasarį pražystančios slyvos ir vyšnios sukuria šventumo aurą, kuriai sunku atsispirti.