Along with the Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guilds 75th anniversary Show in Almonte that Jan told you about here https://wp.me/p1WEqk-hG9 we also had a smaller exhibition at our guild sale with the theme of Diamonds. I told you about making the diamonds here https://wp.me/p1WEqk-his They needed something to make them more relivent so I enlisted Jan to make a dragon hand. I am sure she will tell you about it. Then I thought I should make a bowl for everything. That seemed a little boring so I decided a Knight’s Helmet would be much more dramatic.
The helmet needed to be sturdy to hold the shape so I decided to use some Tyrollean wool batt I got before the pandemic, I think. It makes a nice sturdy felt. I think it is a type of Bergschaf. I am told bergschaf just means mountain sheep and not a particular breed. It would be a different breed in different places.
It had this helpful chart on the back.
It is a very nice grey, the batt is fairly consistent and I didn’t need to add many extra bits to thin spots. Most batts I have tried have been very inconsistent in thickness.
Next was laying out wool for the top, bottom and nose peice of the helmet.
At this point, I decided I didn’t want the nose piece attached. it was going to affect the shrinkage in the spot so I removed it and made it a separate piece along with the strapping that will go on later as well.
After that, it was a lot of rubbing and rolling and bashing until it was shrunk to the right size.
