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Category: Scarves

Felting, Weaving and Teaching

Felting, Weaving and Teaching

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I had a fairly productive week I made 4 cup cozies.  They need their buttons and elastic loops but I should get that done this week. I need to sort out if they are narrow enough to go through the handle on a coffee mug. If they don’t fit I will make them for travel mugs without handles.

cup cozies

Here are some close up pictures. The top two have throwsters silk waste. The bottom left is a silk scarf and the right is cotton cheesecloth.

cozies close up

I also got the inklette loom warped to make a strap.

incle loom

The weaving is not great but it is getting better as I go.

ingle weaving

Lastly I had t very nice ladies to may studio to learn to make nuno felt scarves. As usual I was busy with the students and forgot to take pictures until the end.

nuno finished scarves nuno scarves close up

 

Scarves

Scarves

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Just before the end of last year, I made a few scarves that I didn’t get chance to post about. The first one was a present for my sister’s birthday. I took the inspiration for the colours from a previous scarf I made, which was blue and purple. I blended up equal amounts of blue, purple and green 18.5 mic Merino on my drum carder. I can’t remember now how many times I put the batts through, I think it was only once because I wanted random variegation. This is the back of the scarf:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI added some silk top to the front:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd I just like the way this photo looks 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI used what was left of the batts and added some more blue, purple and green, with a lot more green so I could make a scarf for my dad. You might remember the batt. I used some to make a nuno sample (which is now my nuno collar which I wear when I go out, though it looks more like a foppish cravat!) When I weighed it, there wasn’t enough for a scarf, so I had to blend up some more Merino. Even though I only needed about 10 grams to be on the safe side, I had to recreate the stages of the other one to get a similar blend. I think it’s my favourite one so far:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAHere’s a close up

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOne thing I noticed while carding the batts, was that the more the wool/batts were carded, or re-carded, the more I got soft little nepps appearing. I did pick a few out, but it wasn’t easy so I left them, hoping they wouldn’t be a problem since they were so soft. It might be my imagination because I certainly can’t feel them, but there definitely seems to be more texture on this scarf. I think the light here caught it just right:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI liked the way this photos looks too, I’d just casually dropped the scarf on the table and it folded like this:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Batts, a Rainbow and a Scarf

Batts, a Rainbow and a Scarf

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Firstly, I’d just like to say thanks to everyone who took the time to comment and offer their suggestions on my last post, they were all really appreciated and have given me lots of ideas for the future.  After a lot of thought about Social Media, especially after Leonor‘s comment and advice, I caved in and made a Facebook page   https://www.facebook.com/pages/Felt-by-Zed/867287306648868  There’s nothing there yet, I’m still trying to work out how to follow people etc, so if you have any tips, helpful hints etc, they are very welcome. Also, what’s the ‘etiquette’ on groups, can you just ‘join’ ones you like, or follow or whatever it is, or should you be invited?

I wanted something soothing and relaxing which didn’t require much looking after doing lots of sewing, so I thought I’d make some batts. I made them all a bit different, some with just different shades of Merino and some matching fibres, some had a lot of texturey wools blended in and I made a couple with lots of different fibres , shades and textures.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI also made some single colour textured batts to use on rainbow pieces, these didn’t photograph very well because there wasn’t much colour difference and it’s been really dark here the last couple of days. I did use them on this piece though, I’m going to add a little more green to where the yellow blends into the green, I don’t think the band is quite so defined in real life, but it does look like it needs more green on this photo.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI finally got around to making a scarf yesterday. It took all week to ‘prepare’ for it as I had to do it on the hall floor, so cleaning the hall floor, working out shrinkage, drawing out the template, etc. When I did get around to it, I was regretting it an hour in. 2 hours in I was regretting ordering 4 more packs of 18mic Merino last week thinking I’d get into scarves for a bit. 3 hours in I just wanted to curl up on the pillow I was using for my knees and have a nap. Today, every time I look over at my scarf and think ‘Ooh, it was worth it though’ every muscle in my body disagrees 🙂  I do like it though. I couldn’t get a very good photo, I’m afraid. Like I said, it’s really dark here, and the blue and purple are quite dark, and my camera seemed dazzled by the shininess of the silk. So, this will have to do for now:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI started with a template 25 cm wide and 200cm long (roughly 10 x 79 inches). I did alternate sections of purple and blue for the first layer, then the opposite colours on top for the second layer. I then added some matching colours of silk to the top, then contrasting colours:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt finished up being  19 x 176cm or 7.5 x 69 inches.

Sewing and Bargains

Sewing and Bargains

Comments 19 comments

I’m doing another Craft Fair at the beginning of November so I wanted to make a few diary covers. This usually involves my desk getting covered with embroidery threads, and the only exception this time was that I decided to tidy them up too. I made cardboard ‘bobbins’ for some of them and spent ages untangling and winding and then putting duplicate spares in a bag. Then a couple of days later I decided to clear some more drawers and spread the threads out a bit, make them even tidier and easy to choose. These are all the drawers:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOne of the pieces I’m using for a book cover is a piece I made years ago. I wanted to see if I could make a subtle plaid design by laying out bold stripes of colours on my two layers, it was more subtle than I thought, but I like it. I’ve cut to size and sewn the inside pocket edges so far:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAYou might remember this next piece from when I tried some commercial pre-felt from Heidi Feathers. The silk hadn’t attached in a couple of places so I added blanket stitch, then decided to add some more simple stitching in the blocks of colour. I’m still working on this, and have added a bit more since I took the photo:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI went in to the city centre this week, which I don’t often do, so made the most of it looking for bargains. I found a couple of elasticated summer dresses for £1 each so got them because I liked the pattern, they were only tiny though, so once I cut the top off, the bottom was a bit bigger than a pillow case, but well worth £1!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIn the same shop I treated myself to a ‘scarf’ because I liked the pattern, it’s actually the size of a door!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI saw this scarf in a bargain shop and thought I’d see if it nuno felts well:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd, I couldn’t go to town without a trip to Abakhan fabric shop, where I got some more braiding (I took a photo of the back for you, Ann!)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd probably the best bargain of the day, I found a roll of silk fabric, down from £10 a metre to £3, so I had to get some 🙂

silk 2

Felting with friends: scarves, dying and more bags.

Felting with friends: scarves, dying and more bags.

Comments 23 comments

On our felting week end Maureen decided to do scarves. She wanted to try out some 50/50 merino silk that she had.  She laid out the wool quite thin and rubbed it into prefelt.

maureen felting thin scarf

Once it was prefelt  she spun the water out of it and started cutting it. She made slits that she then stretched out and started fulling.  You stretch and full, stretch and full and end up with great holes.

maureens cut scarf 2

Next was into the dye pot. Although the scarf turned out great, it did not show off the silk. Usually the silk and wool take the dye a little differently, with this blend I was all one. We decided that it was because the it was to well blended.

maureens cut scarf

Maureen did 2 more scarves one in the same style and one solid. Sorry the pictures of them did not turn out.

Diane hasn’t done a lot of dying so Diane and Maureen dyed some silk chiffon.  The silk was twisted and dyed with several colors.

dyed fiber dyed fiber.

On the last afternoon I decided to make a bag for my mothers birthday.

moms bag startThe inside of the bag will have a red stripe. I used a combination of commercial prefelt and top. I also added some Blue Faced Lester wool to add some strength and stiffen it.

moms bag ready to felt  This is the outside. There is black next to the resist and the white on top. I wanted the black to migrate through the white and make a light gray. This is the finished bag. its reversible.

gray felt bag gray felt bag reversed

Diane decided she wanted a new shopping bag. She started out huge and did many layers of prefelt and wool.

dianes giant bag

Here she is fulling it

dianes giant bag fulling dianes giant bag fulling more

You can see it did shrink but just after this she gave up and said she will put it in the washer at home to see if she can shrink it more. At this point it is a large sturdy basket.

This is our group shot. We were very busy. You can see Maureen’s two scarves on the left.

fruits of our labour

The one on the right was one Maureen had made recently, added just the balance the picture. And finally that was the end of the weekend. We needed to go home and rest.