I was updating my flickr page and had a look back over some old pieces when I found a photo of some textured felt I made a long time ago:

I think I made this piece in response to a World of Wool post asking for photos of pieces made from just their products. I used loads of different wools and fibres: Natural Merino tops, carded lambswool, English 56s, White Devon tops, washed Wensleydale, Washed BFL, washed Falkland, wool nepps, silk noil, silk hankie, silk carrier rods, natural bamboo tops, washed lambswool, Oatmeal BFL, grey and brown Merino, black jacob, grey Gotland, Grey Masham, Scoured grey/black lambswool. I made it using a felting technique of adding fabric and fibre scraps between layers of wool and sewing up the piece between sheer fabric and felting in a washing machine. One of the first pieces I made was this blue piece:

I used lots of fabrics and fibres on the piece including synthetic organza, silk fabric, silk noil, Bluefaced Leicester and Wensleydale locks, and dyed Icelandic wool and dyed carded lambswool. Here’s an angled close up which really shows the texture:

On this close up you can see the wool migration through some green synthetic organza:

The blue parts on this close up are dyed Icelandic wool, and the white parts are silk noil:

This is one of my favourite textured felt pieces, I had in mind a sunset over the sea:

I made a couple of bags with the technique, this is one of them:

I added a strap:

And this is another bag:

I can’t find any photos of it with a strap. I don’t do much self promotion, but what the heck, I like to eat now and again 😉 I just listed a quick guide on etsy for how to make the textured felt. It’s basically a slightly expanded version of the free tutorial on flickr, but in a handy PDF format. I thought I might make some more pieces using this technique so I’ll let you know how that goes!

I also finally joined Pinterest!