Friday's Fiber Artist(s) - Bacon!

O.k. so Bacon! isn't the name of the fiber artist, and I don't have an individual fiber artist to feature but a few. I have been a little distracted this week by, you guessed it, Bacon! So, I will quickly plug (again) the newest Etsy Street Team, Team Bacon! and move on to featuring some Bacon! inspired fiber artists.

First off, I am going to show you how Bacon! and needle felting find a happy place together. Here at the Dyeworks aka my house, we have just started to explore needle felting. My daughter has really taken to it. So much so that I have barely gotten a chance to do any. She currently working on making a little Easter egg.

Needle felting has been in industrial use since the mid-1800's but wasn't put into use as a handcraft until the 1980's. This is when David and Eleanor Stanwood transferred the needle from an industrial needle felting loom for use as a hand held tool.

The felting is done by the repeated action of 'poking' the fiber with specially designed needles. The needles come in different gauges and the tips are barbed so that the fibers are pulled and pushed together.

Needle felting is very useful to create sculpted and detailed felted pieces, such as these Bacon! bookmarks from Felt Like Helping on Etsy.

Bacon Bookmarks by FeltLikeHelping

Although being a Bacon!ite inspires her work, Felt Like Helping also creates some beautiful needle felted flowers. I definitely appreciate her flowers as my first needle felting project was a flower that went monstrously wrong. I will not post a picture of my monstrosity as I fear the needle felting police would come and repossess my felting supplies! Instead, please bask in one of her flower creations.

Oxeye Daisy Bookmark by FeltLikeHelping

Of course, people still wet felt, which is useful in creating pieces on a larger scale. In this process, the fibers are 'tangled' together by using moisture, heat, and agitation. Some of you may have inadvertently wet felted a nice wool sweater when you tossed it in the washer (oopps!). Welt felting can be done using either a previously knitted/crocheted item or using loose roving.

Chris Chunski has created this awesome Bacon! scarf by wet felting loose wool roving.

We Felted Bacon Scarf by Chris Chunski

Speaking of scarves, here are a couple of Bacon!y creations using a fiber art medium close to my heart, silk and dye. The first is from an fiber artist we have already gotten to know here, TeeGee.

Bubble Silk Bacon Scarf by TeeGee

This scarf, handpainted by Crrysstall on Etsy, is a light and whimsical take on wearing your favorite food.

Hand Painted Silk Bacon Scarf by Crrysstall

O.K. (looks out the window to check outside), the Universe hasn't gone haywire because I've  combined two of my favorite things in one blog post! All is good. Go forth, eat Bacon! and create!

Team Bacon!

It's a craze that's sweeping the nation, Bacon! Well, o.k. not really. But if it did we would be a happier and more unified world. Bacon! brings people together. A perfect example is a group of us creative and slightly zany (boy, that's an understatement) Etsyians.

So, we've made our Bacon! solidarity official by joining forces and forming Team Bacon! Here's a few words from our fearless leader Allegro.

"So what does Team Bacon! do, and what do we have in store for the future?
Like any other Etsy team, our primary goal is to join together sellers with a common interest and use our collective talents to promote our work. But Team Bacon! is more than just that. We are a collection of very unusual, humorous, and highly talented crafters. We don't follow trends, we make them."

In a Bacon! powered frenzy we have created a Team blog, a Fan Page on Facebook, and we're on Twitter. It's amazing what a little bacony motivation can get accomplished in a little over a week!

The blog is simply wonderful. Not only can you find links to wonderful Etsy shops, but there are bacon recipes and a bit of trivia, to boot. We are also trying to team up with the charity organization  SixDegrees.org to turn the power of Bacon! into a force for good.

Our last hurdle is to be officially recognized by Etsy so we can get our marketing into full swing. So, I say, "Free the Bacon!"

Oh, how could I forget the wonderful giveaways! Here is the current giveaway. A cute ACEO print by our own Moonstr.

Speck ist gut by Moonstr

La gente, unido, siempre queiran tocino!