a life of felt

Archive for the ‘Felting’ Category

Masham rug

Friday, May 18th, 2012

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 bag – part one

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

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.

Two years on

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

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.

Carded

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

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.

Name it!

Sunday, April 29th, 2012

I snook in a second nuno scarf! Mind you, I have made an error on it thanks to trying to do too much multitasking, forgetting where I’d got up to and finishing felting before I’d finished laying out!

I’d already wet it before I remembered to take a photo. Same process as the last scarf using Merino wool and recycled sari silk fibres and rovings onto hand dyed silk chiffon.

This ended up brighter than I’d originally intended but pale colours just didn’t make it sing in the same way as brights do.

I love the ends. Again, I didn’t want a straight edge and the flowers both break the straight line and add some weight to the scarf.

Problem is, I don’t have a name for this one. Suggestions anyone?

Sea Foam

Saturday, April 28th, 2012

I’ve managed to squeeze in a quick nuno felted scarf this week. It’s hand dyed silk chiffon in turquoise and I decided on a circle theme.

I laid Merino/Silk blend fibres along the edge and along the length of the scarf in collections of circles, some within others.

I wanted to continue off the end of the fabric so that it didn’t finish with a straight edge. Continuing with the circle theme I laid it out then put a second layer of bubble wrap over the top then flipped it over so I could add more circles on the reverse. Once the fibres were through the fabric I heated it all up and began throwing until I achieved this.

It’s very summery. The original idea was to do this in red, white and blue so it’d be ‘Jubilee’ colours without being a flag. This didn’t work for me and I have to say I’m very pleased with the colours used.

My daughter thinks it looks like sea foam especially along the edge. Do you agree? What would you name it?

 

New Autumn Workshops

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

I now have a full list of workshops for the Autumn which includes a couple of new ones. I hope you’ll like what I’ve planned, here’s the list in brief.

Sat 15th September – felt pictures
Sat 6th October- flowers
Sat 3rd November – nuno wraps
Sat 1st December – nuno handbags – New

Fri 7th September – introduction to needle felting
Thurs 4th October – 3D vases and boxes
Fri 9th November – dyeing wool and silk fibres – New
Thurs 6th December – hand and neck warmers

If the dyeing workshop is successful I will try to turn this into a Saturday workshop for more people.

Don’t forget, it’s the WonderWool Wales show this coming weekend, and it’ll be Woolfest in Cumbria on 22/3 June perhaps I’ll bump into you at one of them!

A little felt

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

I don’t know about you but when there’s a lot of other things going on in life I find it difficult to be creating felt. It’s as though there just isn’t room or focus for me to design. However I can manage to do mechanical things, so when I checked my fibres after the last workshop I decided something needed to be done.

Some fibres were past their best and I had lots of cut bits of soya, silk and ramie fibres so i decided to make pre-felt.

There’s dark brown with the cut fibres (plans forming for using this one), a mid brown with pieces of BFL roving and a purple and lilac one in the foreground. These will all be added to my pre=felt stash which I have to say, is unexpectedly getting rather low. Funny how even making something this simple is so satisfying.

Finished present

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Before I show the finished present here it is under construction.

I filled the body of the sheep with washed but uncombed BFL fleece – yum.

The face and horns were filled with fleece but no curly pieces of fleece as I wanted a textural contrast between the  body and head.

Complete with facial features. Not the prettiest of sheep but sufficiently like the Adelaide Walker logo to pass muster.

Framing is such a personal thing I hope I’ve done right with this but I always think a framed picture looks better when it’s for a present. I hope they like it, fingers crossed for Tuesday.

 

Autumn workshops

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

New mid week workshops added for the Autumn

Friday 7th September

Needle felting is a dry felting process which we’ll be using to create a basic 3D figure. It’s so much fun to see it come alive in your hands. This is one of the figures from the last workshop, isn’t it great.

Thursday 4th October

Learn how to make a felt vase without seams and a small box with a lid. There’ll be a range of natural and dyed British wools on offer.  Boxes with lids is a new addition to this workshop.

Friday 9th November

An introduction to dyeing wool and silk fibres using acid dyes. You will need to bring rubber gloves and a dust mask. A brand new workshop covering steam and immersion dyeing.

Thursday 6th December

Nuno and pure wool felt fingerless hand warmers and short scarves, perfect for winter.

As soon as I have the dates confirmed with the village hall I’ll announce the Saturday workshops too.