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For centuries, needle and thread have been to sewing and quilting what a cutting board and knife are to cooking. They're indispensable tools. For this series, we're going to take the thread out of the machine sewing equation while working with more needles to create works of art. Welcome Isabella Hoffmann, who is a fiber artist and machine felting expert. She does most of her innovative work using a felting machine. Isabella, welcome to Sewing with Nancy. Thank you so very much for having me and giving me the opportunity to show your viewers how I do my artwork and my techniques. As an example, my Cardinal Delight table runner uses wool fabric for the background and appliqus. I'll show our viewers how to mesh all the pieces together using a felting machine and then add embellishments by hand to complete the artwork. "Machine Needle Felting" that's what's coming up next on Sewing With Nancy! Sewing with Nancy TV's longest-airing sewing and quilting program with Nancy Zieman

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Baby Lock a complete line of sewing, quilting and embroidery machines and sergers. Baby Lock, for the love of sewing. Madeira, specializing in embroidery, quilting and special effect threads because creativity is never black and white. Koala Studios fine sewing furniture custom-built in America. Clover makers of sewing, knitting, quilting and embroidery products for over 25 years. Experience the Clover difference. Amazing Designs and Klass needles. We're going to start with working machine needle felting but talking about fabric. Isabella, your fabric choices are lovely and all of your work as our viewers will soon see. Much of the fabric that you work with is wool. Wool fabrics, yes. Some hand-dyed fabrics as well as fabrics by the yard or even felt. Yes. Your hand-dyed fabrics which we'll be working with a little later in the series have lots of life into them. Yes. I love them specifically because they come as mottled or very gently dyed with a different-- the colors are stretched out further and that gives me different types of backgrounds that I can use. The wool dyed fabric is lush, thick and wonderful to work with. Yes. You may have yardage at home or would re-purpose some fabrics a suit jacket let's say, or men's pants and yardage is great. It's wonderful, because these give you different textures and more options when you combine these together. The third option we have to choose from is the wool felt. Yes. Wool felt is a little bit different than the fabric wool because fabric wool is woven and so you are going to have to work a little bit harder on it than if you use wool felt. Wool felt is just literally meshed together and you get literally everything through from one side to the other, very fast. This is a fast process, though, regardless. In the book that accompanies today's program you'll get the pattern outlines or appliqus for this technique. Isabella, you have photocopied these onto freezer paper. Yes. The reason I do that is because I'm a bit lazy. So I would like to-- Printing is much faster. Then you can just rough cut it out and iron it onto your wool fabrics the fabrics you have chosen, or your wool felts. Or you could use a light table and trace it. Whatever is more comfortable. Isabella has rough-cut the designs so that they're allowing about 1/4" seam allowances and then you just press the freezer paper right to the fabric, which makes it so convenient to cut out the exacting shape. That's right. Then for positioning, we have a layer beneath that you have already positioned. Let's put the cardinal together. We've removed the paper backing. Just peel it off and save it, because you can use those again. In this case, I lay it not on top of the branch but above the branch. There is a reason for this. And we're going to come to that right here. I like to add these two pieces together so that I have the natural flow of it. Then after we have cut them all out and laid them. I trace, or actually mark the areas. I'll just turn them a little bit so that we have to cut a little bit less. We don't want to have overlap of fabric, in short. Otherwise, it will not look right in the finished design. Because we're turning this and we're working at the end on the other side you would see these different layers. So, we'll trim this. And then, after pinning into place we'll be ready to do the felting or the punching. Earlier in the program, I mentioned that we weren't going to be working with thread when working with the machine. Yet, we have something that's very sewn and the fabrics are melded together or meshed together by the use of barbed needles. This beautiful design was made possible by just punching the needles through the fabrics. Now, there are several ways, two ways I should say of working with this. The slow way and then the fast way. But before I show you both of these techniques I just want to show you how we trimmed the appliqus. Isabella made some markings where the branches and the star came together. We have those fabrics butted together. I have my little sample placed on a brush that's calibrated to meet the length of the barbed needles of the hand felting tool. Just felt the layers together and you'll soon see as I pull this up how the fibers come through the area. If you're working on a large project this is great for basting things down but Isabella, you have all your appliqus positioned. I would position. And the nice part about machine felting is you don't have to thread a needle, and it's fast. I'd like to show the students to lay out everything like they would be ready to felt the whole thing except that gives you the flow. Then what I do is I take away the small parts so that you don't have all these pins in it. I'll take these things out and I'm going to go ahead and just tack. I call this tacking because you can lift up the pieces when you don't like them where they're positioned. So I'm going to go ahead and just punch them. Perhaps I'll turn the light on. Then go ahead and punch. Tacking. You just lock it like you're walking down the street. That's it, pretty much. There are 12 needles in this machine. That's a lot of needles, and I don't want you to worry. If you're going over the edges, that is perfectly okay. It will add a little bit of a highlight to it and it does change the texture, but it does heal. When you're coming to the area where the pieces join-- make sure that you take the pins out because they will break your felting needles on your machine. You might want to take the pieces and kind of just slightly push them together to make sure that you have no gaps in here. I would like to show you if you've positioned these pieces and you need to lift them up again because you don't like where you are. You can see where the fiber meshed together with the wool but you don't have a lot of damage and you can continue doing this. So, if you want to, in this particular piece we want to make sure that we're machine felting the whole thing down nice and solid if you like the position. You want to watch out that you're not creating a hole because this works very fast. The best way to do it is to do small circular motions, slow. Hit the pedal to the metal because you do want to have the speed. Don't be afraid of it. The circular part will give you a very nice even look. We'll just keep going. Periodically, you want to take a look at the back to see how the fibers all come out. You can tell the areas to leave. So, it is very, very fast. You're right to the point. The reactions are just incredible! I can see a little lifted up here but I could move this area up and just gently position. Taking out a seam is much easier than when you have thread. Oh, yes. You don't need your long term friend the seam ripper, anymore. That's why the tacking is a really cool technique not to worry about it. Now, this next piece that Isabella is going to show you has been felted, almost the entire thing and if you want to show our viewers how the fabric colors are going to change as they meld through. That's the punch side of the fabric. Then from the opposite side of the fabric I'd like to show two different things because that really, really shows you on here. You can see these pieces have not been punched yet. And here, we went and punched it. It does change the texture of the fabric. And because all the fuzzy part goes to the other side it also changes the color. That is a great opportunity later on to shade if that's what you're going to do. This is the backside of it. You've used the backside as the side of preference. Right, and because of a lack of terminology we call this the punch side because it's the area the machine punches on and then this would be the pressed side because the fiber is being pressed through. So here's another close-up look of the pressed side of the fabric. Notice that Isabella added some crewel work some hand stitches, French knots, chain stitches some metallic thread around the star to highlight it and veins within the leaves. Isabella, you can just do this by hand. You can do this by hand. If you're comfortable, you could do it with the machine. If you are uncomfortable embroidering the berries you could simply cut out a round circle and punch that down. From the other side, you could punch this down instead of putting it on the fabric. Here is a sample right here. So on this side you can see the option that you have for the berry. It's lovely, soft. And gentle. It's a great place for people to start. An excellent place because you can take other pieces, appliqus that you have found in your books and use those. It's endless. The key is working with a felting machine, a hand tool and great fabrics. Whenever I see pansies I think of my grandmother Francesca Johanna. She had the most wonderful gardens filled with pansies and roses, as well as vegetables. My grandmother allowed my brother and me to play in her garden shed and it was the perfect garden shed. Beautiful flowers like these remind me of wonderful memories. I dedicate this piece to my Oma and other grandmothers the world over. This design is just charming and pansies can be multiple colors. They come in so many different styles and color combinations. It's incredible. You have used a beautiful combination with the blues and obviously, white with the center. This time, the design is featured from the punch side. Correct. Not from the pressed side. Everything is done on that side, right here. The color combinations that you've chosen for the pansy are some of the samples here in beautiful hand- dyed wool fabrics. As we peel back, you can see some of the processes that Isabella has used. Here are all the pieces, lots of pieces for that pansy. A little bit more and it's a little bit trickier. You have to think of these pieces like a puzzle piece. You just dissect it and put it back together. After tracing and cutting out the pieces then you are going to position them. You do not want to have a lot of overlay because of the needles. It takes the stress away from the needles. In this particular piece right here in some areas you have a little space in here because other pieces fit in. You can possibly see in this section Isabella has already felted the middle section but will be adding these outer sections and then some of the beautiful vines and the shading technique. The shading technique is lots of fun. It's like coloring and being in fourth grade. It gives it so much depth. We're going to go to the machine and do some more punching. Isabella is going to continue with the felting process of the pansy and you're going to add the dark areas of the leaves. Let me show you how I went about this. One of the things you want to watch out for is laying these points like the puzzle piece like we talked about earlier. Now I'm just placing these right back on it. Just snug them together. Snug them together. The best way to do this... The machines like to kind of pull away a little bit. Just kind of push it together a little bit. There we go. It's a little bit awkward because-- Sure. It's incredible how fast the machines actually felt. If you see that you have a little spot right here that you missed I'm not going to worry about that because I can fill it in with the marker later on. It's very, very forgiving. There we go. The wool fabric just loves to be felted. Yes. Because you have so much fiber I like the wool fabric really well including the wool felts. I can maybe add this little piece in here because it's so fast. What I've found is that you don't have any bobbin threads or any threads to cut so you can just move. You want to be lazy, that's the tool. This is absolutely great. Children love this because it's like an instant reaction and they don't have to sit there and worry about, "I can't sew," or threading. And it's very safe for children too. The next step of realism that comes to these designs that Isabella has added is the shading. The yellow fabric and the pansy, the purple have additional emphasis and dimension because of working with fabric pens. Let me show you how I go about this. This is really the fun part. This is the ah-ha moment for most people. Ah ha! That's right, it's really fun. When you have the pens I started out with the lightest colors. Actually, in here I'm going to add a little bit of yellow. No, a little blue to it, just to do something different. In my book, I have the different types of markers that I'm using. You need very, very little. These are very potent colors. These markers also have a blender which is a clear liquid. They're alcohol based. You can just wipe this out, if you can see this. I'm going to work this over here because I'm right handed. Not only does it change the hue of the color but you can stretch it out. The nice part about these markers, too especially the blender, that really is the key thing. If you make a mistake and you hold it on long enough it will eat the color and you can start over. So, I mean, how safe can you be? It takes really, the fear out. So by adding a little bit of blue in here-- I can do a little bit more, just so you can see. These markers have different types of tips. Just add a little bit of blue, a different blue and this will really give you a really good idea. Yes. Kind of work it a little bit. So far, we've meshed fibers we've added fabric pens to them. When you mesh the fibers together you lose color so now we are adding the color back to it. And we are adding what we like, which is much more fun. So by having this right here I'm going to be adding a little bit of some of these centerlines of these pansies. I used the fine tip of the marker. And all you have to do is just do these little lines. These you can embroider later on, or not. If you don't know how to embroider you will still have a very nice piece that is almost finished. There we go. For fun, we can even add a little bit of yellow on the bottom, right here. Let's just do this for fun. That really adds a lot of depth. It changes the entire look. So, you can customize your own pansy, so to speak. While Isabella is finishing doing the shading I'm going to show you another design she's been working on. She has pansies of many colors. You can see the highlight of the hand embroidery over the lines that she's drawn the beautiful shading around the edges and then, the creation of vines. Some have been embroidered and some just drawn in to give depth and dimension. Then there are starflowers that have been added. The starflower petal tips have not been felted into place. Isabella, you have the center felted and then you added some French knots. Then you gave an extra cut to those pieces. Let me show you a little trick here which is really a nice little thing. When you trace the flowers out you ironed it on the material and you cut them out-- Here's another thing. In order for them to stand up a little bit more if you cut a little "V" in the corners. Let's just take this piece off here. You can see it right here really well. Let's do a couple more. You can see, when you're punching it it makes them stand up. I have one to punch right here just with the hand felting tool because you don't want to get the whole flower punched down. So, you can just leave the center sections in place. With that, I'm again going to show you the beautiful finished table topper, "Almost Pansies." What a masterpiece of felted fabric! Now, here are some other showcases of Isabella's work starting with the snowflake. Isabella, this side of the snowflake is the punched side. The punched side. It really becomes reversible, whatever side you like best. So then here is the reversed side of it. You can see that the look is a little bit different. You can see that you have all the fiber on one side rather than any kind of a weaving. And again, most students can't decide which side they like best. It is really what you like. That's a beautiful combination. Then as you're felting, you can progress. This cardinal on the apple blossom is in the earlier stages. Yes, and the apple blossom I want to show you that if you don't know how to draw or you're a little bit frightened about it you still have a nice finished piece. If you want to go a step further you can go ahead and draw little tiny branches into it and then you can go ahead and embroider these by hand. Every element that you add adds another piece of life to these projects. That's what makes it lifelike. So you can see there is a lot of versatility in working with this. Learning to punch from the right side from the underneath side. Either way, a work of art. I'm always amazed at the source of inspiration. It's not uncommon for fiber artists to be motivated by landscapes and flowers. Today's Nancy's Corner guest has a totally unique inspiration bent including aerial photographs, satellite imagery, and maps. I'd like you to meet Leah Evans, a Textile Artist who interprets her inspiration with embroidery appliqu, and fabrics. Leah, many people who are guests on Sewing with Nancy have a textile or clothing background, and you do. I studied Textile Design at the University of Kansas and have been working on my maps and microbes since. Now your inspiration, as we mentioned comes from aerial views and satellite views. This is a work in-progress. Beautiful silk fabric. Tell me your inspiration. That is from a sketch that I did while flying. The scene was probably a rural highway exchange and these I added, not from the scene but just from my imagination. They could represent water treatment. Sure. Very interesting and abstract but you're just engaging. It's very nice. Then this next piece, when I first saw it reminded me of crop circles. Yes, and I do have some pieces based on irrigation circles but these are more-- Cul-de-sacs Yeah, based on cul-de-sacs in a development area. Fun. You have turned under appliqu. It's my first attempt at traditional reverse appliqu. I usually do it on the machine and have raw edges. We'll see that in just a few minutes. Then next, we're going to see an inspiration that came from a map. Everyone who saw this, first of all said "an airport." Yes, it is actually based on a real place. Not all of them are, but it's the airport in Mankato, Minnesota. A lovely combination of fabrics. I like your hand stitching that you've done. Running stitches that add a nice maybe this is to imply a building or an area. It's very interesting. Now these were three pieces that weren't quite finished, as you can see. But, now we're going to get into some pieces that have all the batting and all the layers. This is a different type of appliqu. This is done on the machine. I hand-baste the layers together and then plot out where I'm going to stitch and then stitch and cut away. And this inspiration, give us an insight into that. I was just looking at a lot of images of deltas and this system of breaking up land which is called arpents. This is loosely based on a real place in Louisiana but I took a little creative liberty with it. Creative liberty, creative license we all like that aspect of it. Now when I was looking at these I noticed the beautiful binding techniques itty bitty, and also the irregular border. Nice job. Thank you. It adds a nice dimension to this. Then our last piece we are going to look at has some high contrast in color. Yeah, the orange fabric along with a lot of the greens and the last piece I hand-dyed. Then the nice contrast of the hand stitching. Those are all French knots that I did by hand. Where's the inspiration for this? This piece, I think I was also looking at a map of Minnesota. But I kind of morphed a body of water into a little bit more interesting of a shape. I really liked the dots that represented maybe kind of a shallower area in the water or a shoal. So we have hand embroidery. We have machine appliqu, hand quilting, we have zigzag stitching. We have a lot of combination of dimension of texture, beautiful hand-dyed fabrics. Inspiring. Yeah, it's inspiring for me, too. I like to see what kind of combinations I can come up with. Leah, thank you for sharing this with us. It's a work of art, and what great appreciation. Keep up this great work. Thank you. Thank you for being our guest. Thank you for watching Sewing with Nancy. We'll be back next time with more machine felting with Isabella Hoffmann. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now. Isabella Hoffmann has written a fully-illustrated book entitled Machine Needle Felting that serves as the reference for this two-part series. It's $24.99, plus shipping and handling. To order the book call 800.336.8373 or visit our Web site at sewingwithnancy.com/2409. Order Item No. IHMNF, Machine Needle Felting. Credit Card orders only. To pay by check or money order call the number on the screen for details. Visit Nancy's Web site for more information on this program. 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