OR in the case of this week of craziness, Power to the Cranky, Tired, Gray-Haired-Growin' Art Teacher...wait, scratch that once more. Forget Power. All this art teacherin' lady wants is grape flavored adult drink and chocolate. Copious amounts of chocolate. And no one will end up with a paint brush in their eye.
So this lil jacket o' power has been in my sketchbook and on my mind for many moons, y'all. In fact, my end goal is to have the front of this jacket ablaze with art teacherin' badges like the Girl Scout badges I had on my sash as a kid. Like a "No One Gave Themselves a Haircut in Art" badge and an "I Didn't Huff the Sharpies After a Rough Day with Kindergarten...Today" badge. You know, the ushe.
Y'all might remember from my last needle felted coat that I'm on a bit of a Mad Men bender. Well, I'm nearing the end of the show (noooooo!!) which means I'm in the midst of the late 60's/early 70's. I was fascinated with that era in high school and college, dressing full tilt hippie (with bell bottoms as big as my head, butterfly collared shirts and a sweet stacked sneaker). My fave jams were Sly and the Family Stone, Ohio Players, The Jackson 5 and the soundtrack from Shaft (yes, seriously. Just ask anyone who shared neighboring dorm room walls). I had that time very romanticized in my small little head. As an adult-sized human (with a tween-sized brain) I now realize that time in history was both a frightening and swiftly changing one: the shooting death of a president and his murderer; the shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr.; riots; protests; the Vietnam War; women's rights; racial tension and the list goes on. The Black Panthers were formed during this time and made famous the slogan "All Power to the People" to protest the rich, ruling (and white) class which they found oppressive.
Soon that slogan came to represent all people who felt the injustice and inequality of the time. I find it is similar to how folks now view that ALL lives matter, not just some. I think that fighting for equality will last for many years to come. Thankfully, we live in a country where we are free to express our unhappiness (peacefully, of course) with our many gifts: song, acting and art.
And so all that serious chatter to say, such was my inspo for this here needle felted number! Because I worked on this between Mad Men episodes and was much to lazy to hop up and get my camera, I don't have any process pics. My bad. But I figured y'all have seen enough of my needle felted stuff to get a pictures. If not, I've added a Big Fat Hairy List with Links at the bottom of this here blog post.
In other news, I'm so excited to wear this to NAEA 2016 in just a coupla weeks! Who's going to Chicago for the art teacherin' convention? I do hope to see/meet/watch-netflix-and-chill (er, wait, no) with all my fave friends!
Until next time, Power to the Art Teacherin' Types! And now, for that big list of all my needle felted pieces...
It all started with a hole-y sweater that I thought I'd experiment on...all these sweaters are thrift store finds that I embellished with needle felting. Many of these posts include step by step and video: bird sweater; crayola sweater; puppy sweater
I am interrupting this post with a link to my latest felted sweater...my version of an Anthro sweater with the bonus of a DIY tulle skirt! Check it here. Hello, my name is Cassie and I put birds on things. I know, I'm so cliche that there's even a Portlandia skit dedicated to birds-on-things-itis. Which I apparently have a bad case of.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt. Audre Lorde
Oh, were truer words ever spoken? However, I'd like to just change it up a little bit, if I might, to fit my purposes: There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them with felt.
Yeah, that's better.
So, as you might recall from this post, I have recently caught the felting bug. Like, big time. Which is a really good thing because I have a mountain of thrifted, slightly boring-ish sweaters I'm just dying to felt-ify. Yet another reason to justify my hoarding ways.
I began felting this sweater one evening without any sort of plan but with an urge to put a bird on it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I felted a white paisley shape for the body, overlapping that with the red, blue and a couple specks of black. The tree branch and the leaves took no time at all.
For the back of the sweater, I found some images of birds on pinterest (if you'd like to see them, you can check out my "felting" board) and just started felting away. Originally, I had planned to felt a large tree growing up the middle back of the sweater with birds all over it. But hubs seemed to think that was too cliche and suggested I have the branches growing from the side of the sweater. Huh. Why didn't I think of that?
The birds look out of focus, don't they? That's the fuzzy nature of
felting. Which drives a nit-picky detail-oriented artist like me kinda
nuts. Also, check out that needle tool on the bottom left. A couple of you mentioned in my felting post to beware of stabbing myself. I'd done it a couple of times, but when I literally had to pull three bloody needles out of my index finger, I thought "ah! this is what I was warned about!" That quote being the g-rated version. Ahem.
After felting eleven or so birds on the back of the sweater, I added the tree branches and leaves. I know, I'm making it sound really easy. I'm not gonna lie, some of those flying birds were a bit tricky. I found the key is to work small because you can always make the bird bigger. Meaning, if it looks like a shrunken head birdie, add more felt. However, if you give it a big ole head to start then the next thing you know, you got some sort of crazy giant-headed bird monster that will frighten small children. Which, just gave me an idea...
Want some outfit details? Belt, dress and shoes: Anthro; For the Birds Enid Collins box purse: best ebay purchase ever; felty hair flower: gift from my moms-in-law. AND check out my new hair stylin's. I've been steam roller rollin' my hair almost daily and it's time consuming. This 'do took less than 7 minutes and I love it. I combed some hair forward for a faux bang and put a bumpit at the crown of my head. I braided the bottom of my hair, twisted it into a bun and pinned it with 27 bobby pins (give or take).
Next up on my Hair 'Do To Do: This Hairy Nesterpiece. BTW, ya'll need to check out one of my fave blogs The Hair Hall of Fame. So much awesomeness on heads.
And that is all. At least for now. I've got another sweater in the works after I promised myself I'd take a break. But when I recently experienced a DIY fail, I felt the need to felt again. And punch my frustrations out. While watching out for my fingers, of course.
But I promise, I'm not putting any more birds on things! For at least another 10 minutes. Now watch this funny clip. You'll like it.
