It was 2 days later that I got back to my pot. After some preliminary rolling in the dryer, I rolled it by hand.
It shrank quite a lot. it is very tight around the resist. It is time to do some cutting. I cut in the spaces between the fins.
You can see how much the hole grows as you work the edge. The little blob on the left is the piece I cut out.
I didn’t want to pull the resist out through the hole. It is bulkier and less flexible than usual with the duct tape holding on the fins. I cut an X in the bottom of the outside pot. If I had thought about it I would have done it in the bottom of the inside pot so no one would ever have seen it.
This is how much it has shrunk so far.
Next was a vigorous rub down with a rubbing tool. This is one Jan found in the pet section of our Dollar store. It’s for washing your very dirty dog. I covered the pot with some plastic before rubbing. It is too grabby to use directly on the felt.
It shrank a little more but now it is al flat and smooth.
Before doing any more I needed to rinse out the soap. It always takes much longer to get all the soap out than I think it should.
I start with hot water and finish with cold. I also want to get more shrinkage during this prosses so I am quite aggressive in getting the water through felt to get the soap out.
This is how much more it shrank. You can see the black lines of where it was before rinsing.
I stuck the yellow inside the red one. It wasn’t too hard because the how where they are joined is not very small. What was harder was getting the ball in so I could blow it up. I wanted to use a ball because I didn’t think a balloon would be strong enough. I did get this one I but ended up taking it out and switching to a smaller 8-inch ball. the ball is a Linsom ball, they are nonslip, sort of sticky on the outside. They are great balls because they come with a removable plug. I took a vessel class with Sharon Costello where we used them. I suppose it helped the first layer of wool to stick. The layout on a ball is very difficult. It was a great class, a lot of fun and we learned a lot but not one I like to use.
and in the dark
I think it turned out fairly well. If I were to do it again I think I would make the inside pot bigger so it would open up the fins. I may, depending on how ambitious I am, wet it down, blow up a ball inside and them stuff plastic bags in to make the outer pot bigger. I may cut the fins off and then so some stretching so you can see more of the inside pot. I am still thinking. What would you do?
I thought I would do another one just for fun. I decided it should be bigger this time. For the template, I used a wall clock I had that is to good to get rid of, but I don’t use. I am sure you all have things like that around. To give you an idea of sized it is the typical school or lunchroom clock that is everywhere.
The smaller circle is the one from drawing around the clock. I decided I wanted it a bit bigger so I drew another circle out about 2 inches or 5 cm by hand.
I cut it out leaving a small amount attached to the bigger piece and folded it over to make a second attached circle. I had decided I didn’t want a narrow neck on this one.
Now, you are probably thinking that isn’t very interesting. At least that is what I was thinking. Just to make things more interesting and difficult for myself I decided to add wings in a book resist type of thing. Not satisfied to do that the normal way I decided to make the wings/pages smaller than the rest of the pot. I used the actual size of the clock.
I also separated the pages so the outside edges ended up halfway between the 2 circles on the main resist. I added 2 pages to each side of the resist.
Next was laying out the fibres. About halfway through one side, I was cursing myself for making things so difficult. The problem, of course, was that I hadn’t done a book resist in a long time and had to figure out how best to do it again. You can see I add a piece of silk (I think) scarf to the yellow side that will go inside.
The second side when much quicker than the first
That is as far as I got. That was Sunday. My plan is to do the felting tomorrow and maybe the next day depending on how my knees feel about it. I have a tall table which is great for laying out but not as convenient to rub and roll on. I am going to try to use my tall chair to help with that. I will show you how it turns out for better or worse next time it’s my turn to post. That should be next Wednesday. Have you tried a vessel in a vessel? If not go watch the tutorial and give it a try.
Sorry to say I forgot it was my turn to blog today. It has been a hectic week with our last Farmers’ Market on the 12th. We make twice as much on the last day. However, I did manage to get a little felting in earlier in the week.
I use the dryer to do much of the rolling. It is an old gas dryer that is not hooked up to gas. we can’t get gas where we live. but it is great for doing the rolling and it just needs a regular plug and not one of the big ones that electric dryers have.
I started a hat. It looks a little odd at the moment. This is its 3rd time through. I cut out the resist and then rearranged the hat and stuck it back in to make sure the 2 sides wouldn’t stick as it’s not felted enough yet.
When I put the hat in the first time I laid out this red nuno ruffle scarf. That takes longer than the 15 min the hat is rolling but I hate doing nothing while it tumbles around so I start something new and when it’s ready to go in I pull the hat out turn and flip it and roll it back up and both go in.
While that was happening I laid out a white one. I added some curls to one end. I fiddled with the picture a little trying to get the white curs against my white table to show better.
When it was ready I took out the other 2, rearranged them and all 3 went back in.
All that was on Tuesday. Having forgotten it was my day to blog I just ran over to my studio and took some pictures for you. The hat is ready to move onto handwork and shaping. The red scarf will get one more go around and the white one will have 2 more turns in the dryer.
And lastly, Happy Thanksgiving to all our Canadian readers. I hope you had a great Turkey Day.
I got my dryer balls and my soap done and it is now up at the museum store. the dryer balls have information on how to use them on the back and the tag explains them as well.
A few weeks ago a friend at the guild was selling off left over yarn he bought to do a project that was now finished. I bought these. They are all singles form Brigs and Little. Some are solid and some are heathered.
I decided to use the yellow to make the design on a dark purple hat. I had to partially felt the hat before wrapping the yarn around it. it would have been to difficult to do it sooner.
I am quite happy with how it turned out. the sides dip a bit but I think it looks ok anyway.
I’m continuing on with some experimentation on how three-dimensional shape in felt is influenced by different factors. This time, I am using a resist with a layer of prefelt which is cut in a certain manner and then added to a thin layer of laid wool over the same resist. The differential shrinkage of the two layers creates the shape. I learned of this technique from several discussions on the forum that we had about creating sea shell shapes. One of our members suggested that we look at this blog: www.parallelfunk.de/ She has a series of photos of the steps that I will go through below. Scroll down on her blog to find the relevant blog posts.
I decided to try a seed pod type of shape instead of a shell. The first step is to make a fairly thick prefelt. I decided to use a green batt that I had made some time ago.
The batt was actually really thick so I pulled it apart into two layers. I ended up using only one layer so I have enough to try a different shape. I used a small circle of floor under layment for the resist.
I covered the resist with pulled apart batt in a radial fashion. I wanted the embellishments to run the correct way on the finished pod. You will see how this works when I cut the prefelt off the resist. I wet down the wool, flipped it over to the other side and folded the ends in. Then I covered the other side with wool in the same way. I used two layers of wool on both sides of the resist.
Here is the covered resist ready to felt. I felted in my usual fashion by rubbing with soapy hands. I generally don’t cover the felt with anything except when I wet down I use a sheer nylon curtain just to hold everything in place. We do get quite a few questions of how to avoid a ridge at the edge of the resist. I avoid this by not rolling. I also carefully rub the felt so it pulls the felt inward against the edge of the resist and doesn’t felt against itself. Wool has a tendency to spread out when wet down. This causes the edges not to be pulled tight against the resist. I counteract that with rubbing in towards the center of the circle and making sure that the ridge never forms at all.
Here’s the prefelt after I finished rubbing. It is just barely starting to shrink on the resist and it is holding together well. Now it’s time to cut it open. Depending on what shape you want to create is how you decide how to cut the prefelt.
I cut the circle in half on both sides of the resist. You can see that the silk embellishments will be following the shape of the “pie pieces” when I get them all cut.
I then cut one side into six “pie pieces”. I just eyeballed it since I wanted to end up with an organic form, I wasn’t worried about exact symmetry. Then I flipped the prefelt over and pulled out the edges of the flaps so I could see where to cut on the back side. The photo on the right shows the pieces completely cut with a few flapped open.
The inside of the prefelt needed to be roughed up so that there were lots of loose fibers. So I used a felt brush that I had to roughen it up. I did also try using a fingernail brush which worked just as well.
I then covered the same resist that I used for the green prefelt with black wool. I used only one layer and it was pretty thing. Just thick enough so I wouldn’t end up with holes.
The next step was to reapply the prefelt over top of the resist that was covered with the thin layer of black wool. Then to wet down and begin gently felting.
I used cold, soapy water and worked slowly and gently. I rubbed a lot along the edges of the prefelt and along the edge of the resist where the black wool needed to attach to the green edge. I gently placed my hands over the entire piece and made a rocking motion back and forth with increasing pressure downwards on to the ridged rubber mat. I continued to alternate rubbing and gentle downward rocking. I gradually increased the pressure and rubbing friction until the entire piece was holding together and the green prefelt was adhering to the black wool.
The piece was beginning to shrink and you can see that there was an almost floral shape emerging instead of just a circle.
I picked which side I wanted to be the open top end of the pod and cut a very small hole in the black felt. I removed the resist and began fulling and shaping. I have a problem taking photos during fulling as I am using both hands and get absorbed in the process. I did most of the fulling by pulling the pod from open end to closed bottom end and then rolling it over the ridged mat. I added hot water and rolled it in between my hands as well. I did a bit of holding my finger inside and rubbing the green felt lengthwise but not much. The shape actually nearly created itself. Hopefully, when I try the next one, I will get more fulling photos.
The pod can actually be at least two different shapes. This is more rounded and looks more like a bell pepper or perhaps a sea urchin.
I actually like it stretched out more like a seed pod as shown in the photos above. So I dried it in this shape. I fulled the felt hard and it holds its form easily. The reason this works so well is that the thicker prefelt doesn’t shrink in the same way as the thin layer of black wool. Therefore you get the curved pieces of the green creating the organic pod shape.
I am going to try another one cutting the outside prefelt into a different shape and I will show you that soon.
I got some great really sharp little scissors online. I have no way other than to original packaging or carrying them with me. They will poke through anything I put them in.
My friend Carlene suggested a triangular pouch with a side entrance so I thought I would give it a try.
The little curl at the bottom looked kind of sad and lonely so I cut it off. Then I got protests from the gallery and added some back.
I will add a grommet on the closed side and add a ribbon or string. I am not sure which will be better, thoughts? I think I will loop it the through the handle of the scissors so the whole thing is attached. I plan to sew on a small magnetic closure for the open side.
Now you are probably thinking the scissors are going to go through the end of that, no problem. know I thought of that too. LOL, I started out thinking about a piece of thick leather but I would need to make it into a cone and just couldn’t see how to make it work well. My solution is to get some needle ends. The ones you use to stop your knitting falling off. I will put one down in the point to stick the tip of the scissors in.
I am thinking of buying some more scissors and making up some to sell. The ones I made here aren’t very exciting to look at but I think I can make them a little more interesting without a lot more trouble.
As promised here is the finished pot. It did work, as if there was any doubt. All the problems I had were to do with the size of the pot and me.
The first problem is that I cut the whole in the top much to big. I think it would have been better pot if it had curved in at the top. it is much to open making it more up and down. Part of that is the size of the piece. It is only about 2.5 inches tall. Also I should have to cut the holes sooner so I can work on the cut edges, or at the end so the edges would be cleaner.
Here are the silk cocoons I put in. I did not position these well so on is to high and one to low. Again the size of the pot limited my options. The cocoons did work well. They were crushed., but that didn’t really matter. After it was dry I cut open the cocoons and then steamed them to reshape them. It may have been better to do those sooner so m=perhaps the cut holes could have been made smoother. All in all not a great pot but it was a good piece to remind me of all thing I really already new but didn’t think about. I think I will make another one but bigger.
I only made a small one as I didn’t have a lot of time. I made the resist about 4 inches across.
I wanted to make a 3 layer pot. The first layer is red and not wanting to just do a regular pot I added two silk cocoons.
After both sides were covered in red wool I wrapped it in plastic wrap.
After that I wrapped it in black wool more plastic wrap and then white wool. I have no pictures of those as my battery died in the phone. I rubbed it a while and then popped it in my heatless dryer to tumble and went off to work. That was a few days ago and I finally got back to it a bit this morning. I cut open the first layer.
and then the black and red
I left he plastic wrap on the inner layers and blew up a balloon in side it. I wrapped it up in plastic like a Christmas pudding. and popped it back in to the dryer for more tumbling.
Now I have you all exited, I have to say it’s not done. My studio was freezing this morning so I went back to the house to stay warm. I do not like working in the cold with cold wet wool. I will have to finish it this week and show you next week. Enjoy the anticipation. LOL It’s supposed to be the best part, isn’t it? Were you inspired to give a pot in a pot a try after last weeks post? How did it go?
This week, I made a case for my best friend’s birthday. I made it all in one piece using a resist. I laid out a piece of silk on the resist first so that the back inside had a nice pattern, I also thought this would help strengthen the flap so it doesn’t stretch if it’s opened often. This is the front with the flap open:
And the back with the flap open:
This is how it looked with the flap closed:
I used some dyed silk throwster’s waste and dyed soy staple for the embellishments:
The silk has a paisley design on it, which can still be seen, but close up you can’t tell with the texture:
I always have trouble choosing buttons for cases/purses etc. I’m sure I said this last time, but I really need to make some more buttons out of polymer clay. I bought a bag of green buttons at a hobby fair about a year ago, I thought this one was quite nice, but a bit small:
I liked this ‘fancy’ button, but it’s a bit big and too thick:
This was my favourite and what I ended up using:
I blanket stitched around the button hole and around the opening/flap, but didn’t get chance to photograph it finished. My friend loves it and he’s already using it 🙂
I had planed to do a post about The Holiday Card I sent to Ruth but it hasn’t arrived at her house yet so I don’t want to spoil the surprise.
Instead plan B. As promised some pictures of the finished slippers. I made these for a sample for my slipper class a few weeks ago.
I left the one on the right flat so people could see how it was cut. I will steam or wet it and put it into the correct shape. The one on the left is how is should look . I plan to make a leather sole for them.
The other thing I did for the class was leave one as it was when the felting was finished to show how the wool migrates through the decoration.
And the other one I shaved with a regular disposable razor to show how you can bring it back up.
And now for my something new. It is something I have been talking about and thinking about for a while. Can you guess what it is.
How about now
or now
I am sure you know now
A new camera! It was on sale so now was the time. I had to use my phone to take the pictures because it is so new the battery is still charging. Now I need to figure out some good background and lighting I can use for pictures in my windowless studio. I am thinking some sort of shear on a frame to defuse the harsh light and some wight card for bouncing the light. Maybe a big light gray and or white felt sheet for background.
