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Category: Wet Felting

Even more Natural Wools and Fibres

Even more Natural Wools and Fibres

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Earlier this year, I made a piece of felt intending to make a notebook cover out of it. The base is natural grey Merino and on the top there is: crimped viscose; black viscose top; banana fibre; hemp; soybean fibre and top; milk protein fibre; black and white bamboo top; ramie; ingeo; flax; silk top; egyptian cotton and cotton gauze.

I’d really like to use a yarn or thread spun from natural grey wool to sew it up, preferably not too expensive. If anyone knows anywhere selling natural yarns, I’d be really grateful to know 🙂

Every now and again, I like to try felting with things found in the garden. A while ago I tried bamboo leaves between layers of felt which turned out really well. I also tried some pampas grass flowers (Cortaderia) at the same time, and was surprised how well that felted with very little anchorage. The pampas is felted to the surface and on this piece is just artistic/decorative, it wouldn’t stand up to handling etc.

I don’t know what plant I used in the third piece, it is some little branches from a tumbleweed my girlfriend saw while out walking her dog and brought home for me. I love the way it looks held up to the light, it almost looks stitched.

 

*** Sorry for the lay out and the use of the carousel yet again. I did originally format the post so that the photos appeared between the text in the relevant places, but, like Ann last week (and me every time I try to include photos) what was published was nothing like how it was originally layed out. After 3 attempts to get it to stay how I write it, I’m giving up. To see larger photos, click ‘permalink’ under the photos in the carousel.

Felting Class

Felting Class

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To start I apologise for the formatting but no matter how many times I fix it, it changes when I save It. I hope you can read it alright.

Last weekend I taught needle felting to a group of ladies at Just Knitting in Carleton Place Ontario. They were learning the basics by making Easter eggs.

Here they are starting with their core wool. That’s me on the left, in the orange.

Beginning to Felt

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here they’ve covered the eggs in a base colour and they are adding decorations.

 

Adding Colour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are four completed eggs

 

Easter Eggs

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the ladies wanted to do a matryoshka doll. She didn’t have time to finish during class so she took some wool home.

 

Matryoshka doll
matryoshka finished

 

 

Another decided hers looked more like a chick and added a beak and wings.

 

Blue Chic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two weeks ago I did a wet felted bird house class. I forgot to take pictures during class but did get one at the end of the class. The lady on the right has felted before and brought wool from her flock. It was Rideau Arcott wool. It is a down breed. She knew it might not work the way she wanted but wanted to give it a try.  Her bird house didn’t shrink very much and it needs a lot more work to sturdy it up. She ended up putting them through the washer twice and they still haven’t shrunk much or hardened up. It is the nature of this wool. It was an interesting experiment.

 

Bird House Class
2012 Second Quarter Studio Challenge

2012 Second Quarter Studio Challenge

Comments 13 comments

For the second quarter challenge I thought abstract representation would be a good one. Take a picture, landscape or portrait and do it over as an abstract. There are many kinds of abstract design. Here are 3 pictures to give you some style ideas.

I like to do abstracts. Trying to make something that is life like is just an exercise in frustration for me.  Abstracts give my artistic side a chance to express itself.

If you’d like to join in, please join our Flickr group and post your photos there with a tag of “Abstract challenge”. Or if you have your own blog, post about the challenge and then come back here and leave us a comment with a link so we can go check out your abstract piece or process. We’ll put all the links into one of our Felting Around the Web posts so that everyone can see.

Lots of ‘other’ fibres

Lots of ‘other’ fibres

Comments 13 comments

Although a lot of the speciality fibre tops seem to look very similar at first, especially the white ones, they all have their own unique qualities. It’s interesting to try the different fibres on different types of wool to find out how they work together. Sometimes, they really compliment each other. Other times, like Banana fibre on grey Suffolk, they give interesting textural results. One thing I like to try is lots of different fibres on one type of wool. This shows the differences in how the fibres work with the same wool and also which would work well together with the same wool. I recently got some nice brown Finnish wool tops and tried 7 different speciality fibres with it. I alternated between the white/silvery fibres and the creamy/golden fibres. In order from Top to Bottom, I used: Banana fibre tops; Soybean tops; Ingeo tops; Flax; Milk Protein fibre tops; Hemp and Ramie tops.

Earlier this year I made a Merino and Hemp pouch which was ‘lined’ with cotton gauze. The texture was gorgeous. I’ve used the gauze a few times along with other fibres, and it always looks great, so I thought I’d try it on its own with some dark brown Corriedale. I’d planned to use it just as a test piece, but I really liked how it turned out, so I tried it in a frame I’d recently bought and loved the way it looked.

What have you been working on lately? Do you have a favourite combination of other/speciality fibres that work well together? Or a fibre or fabric like the gauze which makes a great feature by itself?

*** If you want to see decent sized pictures, click on ‘Permalink’ under the photo. For some reason that carousel thing makes them ridiculously small

Not quite a pod !

Not quite a pod !

Comments 18 comments

 

Well I thought since everyone else was making those bird pods that I’d have a go to

 Ha,  it didn’t exactly turn out like one so  I thought I’d try something else,  this is what it started out like.

A little bit too pink for a start, I used a fibre batt that I made a while ago that was a merino blended with border leister   and also some sari silk added it. It reminds me of a pink Hogwarts hat lol  , hours of rubbing and rolling I ended up putting it in the dryer for ½ hour or so and I cant quite get all the wrinkles out.  I must be the only one that ends up with crinkly felt lol   it is nice and strong so that’s on the plus side for me but I also realized pretty quickly that I cut the resist out in the wrong shape, I wasn’t really thinking of the bottom, just the top so that’s why, to me, it looks more like a hat than a pod.

 

So as I was wondering  what I could do with it  I made up some flowers and stems ( these are probably my best flowers so far)  I think I’ve finally got the hang of which way to rub while trying to stay in shape.

 I was thinking  I’d just add them in when of course I knew that it needed a door and a little secrecy!

shhhhhhh   you know Fairies don’t like to be seen but for once I was ready and waiting,  your  not quicker than me little fairy, although he almost made it

 but just not quite

 I ended up having some fun with this and I might add some more smaller flowers ,  its been a while since I’ve pick up my felting needles and just making the fingers was great !!

I hope your all having some fun to 🙂

What I am working on.

What I am working on.

Comments 9 comments

A while back I showed you some multi coloured batts I made from all my leftover bits.  I felted 2 of them with the intent of making some tablet and ereader covers. I haven’t made the covers yet but I have felted them. I only have a picture of one.

blue/green batt before felting
Blue green batt felted up.

I also made this nuno piece. I didn’t like the blue wool much and its been hanging around a while. It was wool dyed to exhaust a dye bath. so I put this nice piece of  to colour silk on top and nuno felted it. I think it will make a nice bag.

Before felting
After Felting
Close up of texture.

I will be going to a medieval fair later this summer. one thing they need is a way to hide their modern electronics but stay in costume. one traditional piece that they can ware is a belt pouch. I am working on making them. I sewed them with my machine but to make them look period correct I need to add stitching to cover that up the machine stitches and I want them to be strong and not stretch out of shape if people over fill them.

Group of belt pouches.
This is the back where you can see the slits for your belt and the stitching to hide the modern sewing machine stitches.
Felt Birdpods and natural wool

Felt Birdpods and natural wool

Comments 14 comments

I really liked the way my first bird pod turned out last week, so I decided to make a couple more. I recently got some dark brown Corriedale and thought it wold be nice to try one with that. Like the first one, I started off with a couple of layers of Merino, natural brown this time, and again added the locks before the top two layers of Corriedale. I added some washed Gotland fleece and some bamboo fibre to the top for extra interest and really liked how it turned out. The bamboo started to look ‘rusty’ in places. I gave this to my mum today and she really liked it.

The last pod I made was an all white one for my girlfriend. I made this a little larger because I wanted to use extra locks. I started this one with two layers of English 56s. The locks I used were Teeswater, Mohair and older Angora goat locks. Teeswater locks are really long, some of the ones I had were 15 or 16 inches, I used those across the top to come out at both sides. The top two layers were merino 64s, then for extra texture I added some combed teeswater tops, Angora and Mohair locks, some very crimpy Bluefaced Leicester, and some carded bamboo fibre. Even if we never get birds nesting in these, they’ll look good with the locks swaying in the wind 🙂

Staying with the ‘natural’ theme, one of my other natural wool and fibre combinations I tried recently was grey Norwegian tops and Milk protein fibre. I liked the way the crimp and wave of the Norwegian wool appeared after felting, it really gave it an interesting texture. And the way it pulled on the milk protein fibre, which was already waving from being pulled by the shrinking felt, gave that an interesting texture too, and made it more rippley. I really like the way those two worked together. I’d be interested in any of your favourite wool and fibre combinations.

Grey Wools and Banana Fibre

Grey Wools and Banana Fibre

Comments 16 comments

Sometimes, the wool and fibres I’m using don’t felt the way I expect them to. This was the case recently when I tried banana fibre with grey Suffolk wool tops. We often say there’s no bad wool, just the right wool for the job. I’d say that was true for wool and fibre combinations too. The banana fibre I used came as combed tops, but I fluffed it up and placed hair-ball like bits of fibre dotted around on top of a couple of layers of the Suffolk. I really didn’t expect the result I got, it was the most unusual effect I’ve seen with fibres and wool so far. Although the banana did felt onto the Suffolk somewhat, it wasn’t firmly attached and gave interesting cobweb like results. The banana fibre in the top right corner reminded me of the compact cocoon-like spiderwebs you find in crevices. Or all over trees and fields after flooding (eek!) 🙂

I finally got around to trying out Ann’s bird pods this week 🙂 The first couple of layers are grey Merino, then I added lots of raw Gotland locks around the edges and added a couple of layers of Gotland roving that Kaz sent me a while back. To finish, I used some carded Gotland fleece and a few wisps of banana fibre. It is about 11.5 inches tall and about 7.5 across the middle. I mainly get small birds here, so the hole is only about an inch in diameter.

There are a couple of new uploads in the Tutorials section of the site. The first is How to make roving from silk hankies on the Fiber Preparation page, and on the ‘Other‘ page, is a short guide to taking photos of felt and fibres. They are both in PDF format and can be downloaded.

What i’ve been up to !!!

What i’ve been up to !!!

Comments 10 comments

I really don’t have a huge amount to blog about at the moment, but I have added to my tree project in my mixed media course.  I”ve added some more stitching with some leaves and flowers  in straight stitches and French knots and I did try to be very clever and create a picot stitch, ( on the right up the trunk )  I haven’t done one of them before  but I want to do a vine going around and up the tree and in a 3d kind of effect,  so this is my first attempt at that stitch and while I thoroughly enjoyed how it works I will more than likely take those few out and re-do. That was just a bit of practise,  I’ve also added a spider web and the dreaded spider ( sorry zed )  he’s a friendly one lol.   I know that its out of proportion but that’s ok to !

I am really enjoying this and although nothing is perfect  and its not supposed to be, I’m loving how its all coming together.  I still need to add more foliage and I’m not really sure what to do with the background but it does need something, maybe a shrub or to in the far distants.   I’m just taking my time with this project and as things come to mind I’ll be adding them in !

 

I’ve also been working on another little note book cover , adding stitches and beads and I think I’m getting the hang of it more now.  I made this sheet of felt a while ago and I’m cutting it up to make 3 covers ,  can I tell you how hard it was to cut into that sheet lol  I struggled, held my breath, closed my eyes and made the first cut, let out a big breath and i’m OKAY !!!!

This one has lots of added silks, threads and sari ribbon !

This is the first of the 3, I’ve added stitches and beads and also a couple of my very own hand made beads.  I think I’m getting a lot neater as I go and the reason I’m doing these are all in practise for my so called album cover that I still haven’t picked up again lol   Once I feel that these covers are good enough I might even put them on Etsy lol   it’s a  long shot but we’ll see  🙂  otherwise i’ll save them for gifts !

I havent added any stitches on the back and i’m not sure i will either, I’m fairly happy with the way this turned out and i can only improve “right”

So thats it for me and i’d love to see what everyone else is working on !!!

More Natural Wools and Fibres

More Natural Wools and Fibres

Comments 10 comments

Another couple of natural wool and natural fibre combinations I’ve used recently are Oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester with Ingeo top, and Humbug Jacob Tops with black and white Bamboo tops.

Humbug Jacob tops are a stripey blend of black and white Jacob wool tops. Just on its own it produces a nice result, but I thought I’d try using strips of black and white bamboo tops for effect. Both bamboos are really soft, white bamboo looks silky, but black bamboo is fluffy and more like fluffy cat fur. They felt quite differently too, the white keeps its silkiness and shines really nicely, and the black almost fades into the background, staying very matt.

Ingeo is made from corn, it is soft and shiny and smells faintly of caramel 🙂 I decided to cover the whole piece with Ingeo as it has such a lovely sheen. This was another fibre which shone even in dim light. The effect after drying is gorgeous, Ingeo is such a nice silky fibre and went really well with the Oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester. I think this combination would make a lovely soft and shiny scarf.