Natural colours

The Wool Lab–trends for Summer 2013

It was really an honor to collaborate with the Wool Lab company in their trends booklet for Spring Summer 2013, - a guide to the best wool fabrics and yarns in the world. My pieces were chosen for one of the trends named PURE.

One of the most important things is to bring inspiration to people’s hearts. Isn’t it?

 

THIMISTER MMXI-MMXII

I’ve just returned from Paris fashion week where I was to see a collection of Josephus Thimister, for whom I made 2 coats and several capelets. And… I don’t want to say more right now except the text of Josephus that accompanied the collection…


THIMISTER MMXI-MMXII
SNOW MYSTIC CIRCLES OF FALLEN ANGELS
DARKNESS STARES OUT THROUGH ENDLESS TIME AND YOUTH, TAKING FORM OF FALLEN ANGELS – BLACK COMPILES ILLUSION AS INNOCENT SOULS ENLIGHTEN SHADOWS – BROKEN WINGS GROW OUT OF CIRCLES, TOUCHING EARTH WITH FLOWING MEMENTOS – INTRICATE CUTTING OF FABRICS, ENVELOPE BODIES LIKE FLUID SCULPTURES RUNNING FROM MEDIEVAL CLOISTERS AS MODERN WARRIORS – BIG BLACK COATS BECOME SHRINES OF SOULS – CONFUSED THOUGHTS ARE FROZEN INTO WILD KNITS AS WHITE OPPOSES BLACK – THUNDER AND LIGHTENING STRIKE THROUGH THE MUSIC THAT RINGS IN OUR EARS ACCOMPANIED BY THE ECHOES OF SHATTERING HEELS – EPHEMERAL WRAPPINGS STORM AROUND BODIES WITH HURRICANE FORCE – THE SOIL IS ALIVE AND PROCESSING WHILE NATURE RECOGNIZES ITS BALANCE – STORMY CLOUDS DESCEND UPON SHOULDERS COVERING THEM IN HUES OF GREY – NORTHERN LIGHT APPEARS FROM THE DEEPEST PROFOUNDNESS – SNOWFLAKES MURMUR QUESTIONS AS BLACK SNOW BREEZES SOFT POETRY – BIBLICAL WOOL OF JACOBIN SHEEP IS FELTED IN ANCESTRAL WAYS INTO CAPES AND COATS TRAILED BY ETHEREAL CHIFFON – SNOW BREATHS THE REMINISCENT AIR OF OUR DEAR TOLSTOI
- JOSEPHUS MELCHOIR THIMISTER

 Photos from style.com

These are the felt pieces I made for Josephus. See the whole collection at style.com

Corner shop – for fiber supplies

As every fiber artist I sometimes have a weak point when it comes to buying fiber supplies and sometimes I buy too much what actually becomes excess supplies. Or as my works evolves I refine the ways and materials I work with and sometimes some of them loose interest for me as I move forward. That’s why I decided to open a little corner shop for my excess supplies on Etsy – feltfeltfelt. Please stop by and see whether some materials would be asking you to be used in your projects rather than laying in shelves at my place ;)

Glimpse of the process

photos by Svetlana Batura

Archaic couture or what’s in common between Chanel and feltmaking trends?

  There is no surprise why there is a big trend of all the wild things in feltmakers world. If you saw Chanel’s ready to wear collection for Fall 2010 you will not ask why. If Karl Lagerfeld can get that wild in couture world, sure we, the feltmakers, can :)



















These photos of my eco-friendly nuno felted dresses with raw organic Wensleydale and Drenthe Heath wool are the prelude to some news to come. Soon :)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kas  matė 2010 rudens “ready to wear” Chanel mados namų kolekciją, nesistebės ir šiuo metu veltinio pasaulyje vyraujančia laukiniškumo tendencija. Jei Karl Lagerfield gali taip sulaukėti, galim ir mes :)
Šios mano veltų suknelių nuotraukos yra preliudija į tam tikras naujienas. Jau greitai :)

A Wild Sheep Chase

 

A Wild Sheep Chase is a title of a marvelous mysterious novel by Haruki Murakami. But it fits so perfectly to the Drenthe Heath sheep chase in feltmakers’ world. It was genial Claudy Jongstra who made this breed of sheep known and fashionable.

Drenthe Heath

 

On my first year of felting I have been experimenting a lot and I found out my own ways of combining raw wool straight from the sheep and fabric. It was not Drenthe Heath fleece back then. It was only after I discovered works of Claudy Jongstra, I fell in love with this rough, wild looking fleece. I was lucky enough to get to know a sheepman who raised this breed of sheep and since then I’ve been getting this wool for my work from his small herd of sheep every year.

For the last few months I’ve been getting lots and lots of emails from feltmakers around the world asking one question – where to get Drenthe Heath wool from??????? Some emails are very sweet and kind, some are pretty demanding….sometimes without any “thank you” reply after receiving my tips on how to look for the wool. (I try to answer all my mail, but please excuse me if I don’t sometimes, but it seams to take too much of my personal time lately…)

A real sheep chase, isn’t it? Well, it feels a little bit weird… With plenty of sheep breeds to choose from. And I mean the same rough and wild look, long staple length wool. As I have just written, it happened so that I knew a man who raised Drenthe Heath sheep, but if he was raising Heidschnucke, Icelandic, Hebridean, Old Norwegian sheep, etc – with no doubt I would have been buying those fleeces.

Yes, Drenthe Heath is a special breed. But so are some other breeds – also the oldest, also very rare and also very wild…

I looked through some breeds of sheep and put photos of some of the wild looking sheep (and there are much more!), and you know, looking at all these ancient breeds and feeling this wildness, I just wish I knew more sheepmen who raise these sheep, I would definitely buy some and use in my felting! Why chase one breed of sheep when there is a selection, perhaps even native, somewhere just around the corner? And…it’s not really the wool that is so magical, these are the hands of the maker and mind of the creator.

The Heidschnucke is a group of three types of moorland sheep from northern Germany.

 

The Icelandic sheep (Icelandic: Íslenska sauðkindin)

 

The Hebridean is a breed of small black sheep from Scotland

 

The Spælsau (Old Norwegian Short Tail Landrace, Gamalnorsk spæl Norwegian) is a breed of sheep from Norway.

 

Polish Mountain Sheep

 

Bavarian Forest (Waldschaf)

The Churra (also known as Spanish Churro)

 

The Faroes

 

The Racka

 

The Sardinian (Brabei Sarda in Sardinian, Pecora Sarda in Italian)

 

The Shetland sheep

 

Skudde

 

The Ouessant (or Ushant)

 

The Valachian (Walachenschaf)

 

The White Polled Heath (German: Weiße Hornlose Heidschnucke, also known in Germany as the Moorschnucke)

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Avies medžioklė – toks yra nuostabaus, magiško Haruki Murakami romano pavadinimas. Tačiau jis labai tinka apibūdinti Drenthe Heath avių medžioklei veliančių tekstilininkių pasaulyje.

Claudy Jongstra savo genialiuose darbuose naudodama Drenthe Heath vilną taip ją išpopuliarino visame pasaulyje. Pirmaisiais savo vėlimo eksperimentų metais atradau savo būdus, kaip sujungti tiesiai nuo avies nukirptą vilną ir audinius veltinio technika. Tiesa, tuomet tai nebuvo Drenthe Heath vilna. Su šia vilna susipažinau tik vėliau atradusi Claudy Jongstra darbus.

Taip, aš taip pat įsimylėjau šią laukinę vilną. Ir manau, jog man pasisekė susipažinti su žmogumi, kuris laikė būtent šios veislės avis ir kiekvienais metais galėjo mane aprūpinti vilna iš savo mažutės bandos avių.

Paskutiniaisiais mėnesiais mano elektroninio pašto dėžutė tiesiog užsigrūda nuo veliančiųjų laiškų, kurių vienas pagrindinių klausimų – iš kur gauni šią vilną???? Kai kurie laiškai labai šilti, mieli, asmeniški. Kai kurie – tiesiog reikalaujantys…ir net po mano atsakymo patariant, kaip ieškotis vilnos, nebeseka nė mažiausias žodelis “ačiū”… Tikra avies medžioklė.

Man truputį keista. Kaip jau minėjau, susipažinau su žmogumi, kuris laikė Drenthe Heath veislės avis. Bet jei tai būtų Islandiškos, Norvegiškos ar kitos ilgaplaukės, laukinės dvasios avys, aš vis tiek būčiau pirkusi jų vilną!

Taip, Drenthe Heath – ypatinga veislė, seniausia Vakarų Europoje. Bet…tokios pat ir kai kurios kitos veislės, kurių pavyzdžius čia pateikiau. Žiūrėdama į jų nuotraukas, jausdama jų vilnos laukiniškumą, tiesiog negaliu nusėdėti, norisi sukišti rankas į monitorių ir visas tas aveles iščiupinėti, suleisti pirštus į jų pirmykščius gaurus… Jei pažinočiau daugiau šių avių augintojų, be jokios abejonės, pirkčiau ir naudočiau įvairių avių veislių vilną. Kam vaikytis vienos veisles, kai yra įvairovė? Ir…stebuklas tikriausiai slypi ne vien tik pačioje vilnoje, o kuriančioje rankose ir galvoje…