Suffering a bit with the neck the last few days so haven’t done much felting but have managed
to take a few photos.
These are now making their way into my shop and in case you were wondering, yes this is my first play with a collage of photos using Picasa. I’m sure I haven’t made the best use of it yet but it is early days and makes a nice change to multiple photos.
No, they’re not all mine more’s the pity, these are from the rug workshop at the weekend. Eight hard working people produced eight fantastic rugs using all four natural shades of Masham plus a little Merino for extra colour.
We laid out three layers of wool then dry felted it using our hands, which helps to take out a lot of the air and begin the felting process. A layer of cotton muslin was added and then three more layers of fibre, dry felted again and then we could begin the surface decoration. Some people chose to lay out random patterns on dry fibre, some chose to lay it out on wet fibres. The difference being thee control this allows over exactly where your decoration is placed. When placed onto wet fibres there is no/less movement of the decoration.
You can see here three of the processes we used for felting. After rubbing to wet and set designs, we rolled as usual then took them outside for more rolling using ropes, bashing with stones, this really hardens the felt but can be hard on thee hands, and walking on it to consolidate the felt.
Didn’t they do well? I just know that you’d like to see them in more detail though.
Clockwise from top left, Lesley with a stunning poppy on the dark brown Masham, Sheila with a contemporary design on fawn Masham, Pru with a striking design also on fawn Masham and Chantelle with a modern design on the white Masham. Pru actually came along with her design idea ready drawn out whilst some had ideas in rugtheir heads and others went with what sprang to mind as they worked.
Amended – Trying too much multitasking this morning and forgot to say that these rugs clockwise from top left are by; Sue on mid brown Masha, Alex on white Masham, Jane on mid brown Masham (apologies to Jane for calling her Alex on several occasions during the day) and Iris on dark brown Masham. It’s a real shame that Iris’s rug doesn’t have a better picture as that bright roving really sang out against the dark background.
I’m teaching a felt rug workshop tomorrow and thought it a good idea to make a rug in the size we’ll be using. After sampling English, Cheviot, Jacob and Masham I decided to use the Masham wool this time. The idea for the design came from a doodle of my daughter’s.
Onto fawn Masham I laid brown BFL pencil roving. I tried out some white roving too but decided I preferred the rug just in brown. The image below shows it once I’ve finished the laying out.
I’m so pleased with how this has turned out, it was definitely worth taking the time on the laying out and being so careful during the wet and set stage.
This is now destined for the living room (when it’s dry). I wonder what people will make tomorrow.
Nuno felting is the technique of combining wool fibres and fabrics through the wet felting process. Most commonly used in clothing it can also be adapted for other uses like bags. I began with one of the fun parts – choosing fabrics.
The chosen fabrics are silk, silk chiffon, crystal organza and cotton muslin.I laid out the printed silk as an internal pocket then covered it with he crystal organza to form an inner lining. After this I added wool fibres and further strips of fabric, silk fibres and pencil roving.
Less fibres find their way through synthetic fabrics and so you achieve greater texture. The photo above shows the crystal organza lining and the one below shows the silk pocket.
Below shows the outside of the bag with three different fabrics felted in. As soon as I make a handle and catch ‘ll show you more.
I’m running a nuno bag workshop on Saturday 1st December so you can expect to see one or two more samples between now and then.
This workshop was nearly a week ago, how time files. We began the day by producing pieces in white Merino using low relief techniques. The day was a little dark and overcast so the photos aren’t great but the felt is rather good and I’ve chosen the best photos for you.
This piece is by Mich and the centre ridge was created by cutting off a section of the felt at pre-felt stage and stitching it back on.
There’s a lot going on with Lesley’s including some unfelted fleece. After this we focused on texture in the felt by adding, fabrics,yarns, threads, plant fibres, recycled items and cut back techniques.
Various fabrics on here including cotton scrim, polyester, muslin, silk, crystal organza, wired ribbon and recycled nets. Mich did very well with the colours, it’s such a vibrant piece.
Jo added knitting and crochet to her felt and you can see where she’s started cutting back to reveal other coloured layers underneath. There are eight egg shaped low relief areas which Jo will reveal but she wanted to take her time on this so hopefully we’ll see a picture of he finished item later.
Down at the mill Adelaide Walker sells sample packs of various plant and silk fibres. It takes up quite a lot of room and after cogitating we came up with the idea of new storage. Not wanting to spend money on this it had to be something we had, or could make from what we had. We began by collecting some of these from an obliging supermarket and yes they were free and already empty, that particular pleasure was denied us.
We tried a sample design and then modified it to make these.
We needed a full twelve compartments. I thought the wine box didn’t look great so covered them with scrap paper and PVA glue.
The white is better than wine box colour but I do think it looked better before this stage. Here’ how the boxes looked on the table, they really did take up a lot of room didn’t they?
The new solution is so much neater and has definitely freed up extra space.
Two years ago I made a spiral in felt with beach glass inclusions and blogged about it here. Picture reminder below.
Lovely rich blue colours. The intention was to place this outside, which I duly did and now it’s time to show you how it’s aged.
So much of the colour has been lost.
It gets a lot of rain and wind but has survived remarkably well and there’s no attack by moths or any other insects. I was never in love with this and perhaps it’s time for me to take it down but I have to confess I’m curious to see how long it will survive and what other changes it will go through. Perhaps I’ll just move it to somewhere less visible.
What a brilliant weekend we’ve had, so much sun I managed to spend two and a half days in the garden! I’ve not been entirely idle on the fibre front. There was rather a lot of pale purple in my stash some of which was past it’s best so I’ve done a little carding.
From left to right – blended with navy, koala and dark brown. Of the three, the centre is my favourite, it’s a very delicately coloured mix. Having completed these I thought a Jubilee mix would be a good idea.
Sadly it’s a disappointment to me, I just don’t like it. Oh well, you can’t win them all.
Well here it is folks, the first bobbin full of yarn form my spinning wheel. It;s lumpy, bumpy, under and in some cases over twisted but it’s all mine. This is Blue Faced Leicester wool which I found relatively easy to spin (not that the results bear me out).
I’m now playing with some Masham which is a longer fibre and has taken me a little time to adjust to. Earlier this morning I had visions of spinning my own wool so I could crochet a blanket but I’m realising that I’m a little way away from that yet. Onwards and upwards.
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