Nuno felt scarf class
Hi all, although I haven’t been doing much felting myself I have been teaching others to do it. I ran my Nunofelt scarf class again this last weekend. I had five lovely ladies at the Ottawa Valley Weavers’ and Spinners’ Guild classroom.
The first part of the class is talking about all the fibres. Students are amazed at all the kinds of silk. I usually bring hankies, tops, throwsters waste and recycled sari silk along will wool BFL locks and sparkly nylon. They get to pick their hand dyed scarf blanks and then spend at least 15 min trying to decide what embellishments they want to use. It’s lots of fun watching and helping with colour and texture choices.
It is so hard to pick.
Then it is on to lay out the wool. Once this starts I put the silk blanks away so no one is tempted to change their mind halfway through the layout. I keep all the wool and embellishments out until they wet everything.
Everyone enjoys using the ball browser sprayers to get everything wet.
In this group, they all stayed together during the different stages of felting. Often they become staggered; someone wants to be first done and another will be very relaxed and go slower. In the end, they always finish and it’s interesting to see the different styles of learning and doing the same thing.
I didn’t get any pictures of the gently squishing and tossing to full but here they are finished.
All in all a great class with happy students.
The only odd thing that happened was one lady had brought her own wool, marked merino and she was sure it wasn’t superwash. She added my embellishments. One of her colours did not stick to the scarf anywhere. My first thought was it was superwash. However, it did seem to felt and grab the silk embellishments on top of it. Nowhere she had used the copper coloured wool stuck to the silk backing. It was attached by other colours surrounding it so it’s all one piece but I have no idea what was/is going on with the wool, any ideas?
16 thoughts on “Nuno felt scarf class”
Looks like a great class Ann – certainly great results, the ladies look pleased with their scarves.
As for the copper wool not sticking to the silk, I wonder if it was the dye. I know that sometimes black dyed merino doesn’t “nuno” very well. Perhaps the dye holds the wool scales down more so the fibres can’t migrate properly?
Ann
Thanks, Yes maybe. It did felt to itself and the other wools and silk top so I am not sure what was going on. I thought maybe she rubbed to hard in one spot so it didn’t migrate but it was every copper spot. a real mystery.
Beautiful scarves Ann and a smiley class 🙂 I agree with Ann that the dye could be to blame as we have had troubles with certain colours at times not wanting to felt.
Thanks, they were a nice group. it was odd because it felted but just didn’t stick. It is very odd
Looks like it was a fun class, Ann! I like your cunning plan of putting the silk blanks away so no one changes their minds 😀
I had no idea dyes could influence the felting! Now I’m curious to know more…
Thanks. sometimes I have to put a time limit on picking colours so they will be done on time. There is lots of embellishment changing later as they see what the others are doing and it sparks an idea or they need to add something to pop the colours. So far (fingers crossed and touching wood) I haven’t had any problems with particular colours not felting.
Great class, Ann, as usual. Looks like they had a great time. Was the copper wool a higher micron count? I haven’t had issues with dyed wool not migrating through silk but I suppose depending on the process, it could affect the outcome.
I think they all had fun. I suppose it might have been a coarser wool. But it was merino so not very course. Of course they were not marked. Usually I ask people to use the wool I supply so I know it will work. I may have to be more strict about it.
It might also be that the wool that did not felt was from a breed that is very slow to felt, such as Suffolk. I’ve also had felting issues with some “mixed breed” wools which contain some of these difficult-to-felt breeds.
It was labelled merino and didn’t seem like a down wool. There was something going on though
Looks like everyone had a ball Ann. You structure your classes so well it’s no wonder they are such a happy group!
I’m going to throw something else into the pot. It relates to part of a conversation I had at the weekend with a felting artist who is very accomplished and not one for ‘out of the blue’ suggestions. I was told that all the big suppliers (NZ, Australia, Argentina etc – in fact 85% of all merino fleeces) have their wool fibre processed in huge factories in China. This would tie in with a conversation I had a while ago with a farmer who pre-covid exported all his fleeces to China. Anyway, according to my friend, fibre is being mixed up in the factory as not all workers understand the difference between superwash and non treated fibre. So when the wool suppliers get their fibres back for further processing they are unaware that some of the content is superwash and it’s dyed (or left natural) and sold for felting, spinning etc etc. I had one lady recently who could not get a fibre batch to felt for her. She got on to her suppliers who quickly did an exchange for her. I suppose the only way for her to find out if it is superwash is if she felts a sample. None of my story might be relevant to the situation but then again, it might be worth considering.
Helene
Oh China again!
After reading what you’ve said Helene, it makes me wonder if the suppliers actually get back the fibres they sent out there, or if they just get what comes to hand next that happens to be the right colour. I’m just glad that I am unlikely to be buying any more merino. I’ll just use up what I have and then stick to what’s been produced in the UK and Northern Europe (or across “the Pond”) if I need more fibres.
Ann
I know everything is processed in china these days unless its small batch stuff. I imagine there may be mix ups. Touch wood, I have never had a problem. I don’t think I would buy from any of the super discount places like temu and ali-express. Who know what you might get.
Glad my mystery merino sparked such a lively exchange! A fun class and I love my “unique” scarf!
SusN
I am so happy you are happy with your scarf.
It seems all the participants had a lot of fun! The scarves look lovely as well.