Bamboo Leaves
I was having a look round my garden last week to see if I could find things to felt with. One of the things I tried was dried bamboo leaves. I did a small sample with 3 leaves between 2 thin layers of 23 mic Merino, and was quite pleased with how it turned out. This morning, bored to tears by Christmas telly, I got my sewing machine out and did some simple stitching on the sample. I think it took longer to get the machine set up and put away than it did to sew, but it killed some time and I liked how it turned out 🙂
8 thoughts on “Bamboo Leaves”
Cool! Was it hard to stitch through the leaves? Glad you got your machine going 🙂
Thanks Ruth 🙂
No, it wasn’t hard at all, and they didn’t split like I thought they might.
I ahve doen some felting with skeleton leaves and I love the look!! Using your own leaves is very kool and I know that Bamaboo leaves are pretty tough. Another leaf hat would be interesting to work with would be eucalyptus- we had lots of these trees in our yard when we lived in SCA . I remember them being very leather like and I bet they hold up well. Love seeing these examples!!
Thanks Elizabeth 🙂
I had two Eucalyptus Gunnii that both survived really cold winters then died during summer, they would have been nice to use for felting and dyeing. I like skeleton leaves too 🙂
Very Clever Zed and they turned out really well 🙂
Thanks, Kaz 🙂
HI Zed, have you actually wet felted the leaves in or sewn only? I like the effect, I’ve been experimenting with eco dyeing with eucalyptus leaves but this is another option you have created. Great.
Thanks 🙂
Yeah, they’re felted in, between the 2 layers of merino. A bit like leaving a resist in because the leaves don’t have anything to grip to the wool, but I would have had to cut the wool to get them out. There was a bit of puckering, but not much, and they sewed really easily.