Nuno felt samples

Nuno felt samples

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This is my attempt to make a nuno felt sample with some added stitching. I had two small pieces cut from a silk scarf, left over from making a tassel for a hat, and I wanted to try nuno felting. I did take an online class (paper fabric lamination) some time ago, and that involved nuno felting, but this is the first time doing it on my own – so to speak.

I have quite a few lavender plants in the garden, each year I cut some for drying, and leave the rest for the bees. I do love lavender, and I wanted to attempt a stitched sample of some lavender flowers. This is my favourite lavender plant, unfortunately the flower spikes are ‘going over’ just now, but the bees are still busy and happy there.

 

The 2 pieces of silk measure 14 inches long each and 8 inches wide. I wanted to add some machine stitching to the finished samples, so I layered both sides with my selection of wool and hoped for the best! I used a selection of blue, grey, purple, and green wool. I was quite surprised by how such a small amount of wool was needed for both samples. I laid the fibre lengthways only, but unfortunately I did not make a make a good job of covering all the edges. Next time I will pay more attention to these areas.

 

The finished size was about 8 inches in length, and 6 inches across.

Both sides of each sample looked slightly different, and I took some time choosing the two I liked best to use for stitching my impression of lavender flowers. I used a straight stitch on one sample, and a zig zag on the other, with a straight stitch for the stems. I placed some tissue paper underneath for ease of movement under the needle.

 

I feel that the colour has not shown up quite so well as it does in real life, probably the phone camera’s fault. I like both samples, but I preferred using a straight stitch, I think it was easier to get the shape of the flower spikes that I wanted. The zig zag stitch is quicker, but it was not so easy for me to manipulate under the needle. Practice is key for me, and I did enjoy the process.

Plain Air wool painting at a the Pinhey’s Point demo

Plain Air wool painting at a the Pinhey’s Point demo

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One of our local guilds mandates is education and we fulfill part of that by doing demos for the city of Ottawa at their local Museums. This weekend we were requested by the Pinhey’s Point Historic Site to provide a demo focusing on weaving but including other fibre arts.

Sign for Pinhey's Point

1) Sign for Pinhey’s Point

Pinhey’s Point features a nearly 200-year-old manor house (Horaceville) and surrounding ruins on 88 acres. There is a fabulous view of the Ottawa River overlooking sailboats at anchor in the bay in front of the house.  There are remains of the original old kitchens and a couple of outbuildings visible from where we were located.

2)  Views from Pinhey’s Point

We had been having high temperatures during the week, not as bad as parts of the States, but still hot for what is normal for us. On Saturday morning I checked the weather and was happy to see a lovely (cool) high of 26c but under the tent, on the top of the hill with the breeze, it felt more like 20c and I should have brought a sweater or jacket! (Never complain, because it could always decide to snow!!!)

The staff had set up a number of 10×10′ tents with tables and chairs. It was overcast most of the day but a lovely spot to chat with visitors, some of whom had come up from the sailboats to see what was happening under the tents.

  3) Part of the Demo team showing, Weaving (2 harness, 4 harness, 8 harness looms), Spinning (2 different wheels) and Felting (Just 2-D today)

I was running late and selected a spot for my table overlooking the front lawn and down into the bay with the sailboats. It would be a lovely spot to work.

3) Morning view of the front lawn

I originally had intended to work on the sheep horns that you might have seen me working on at other demos. I may have been watching too many episodes of Landscape artist of the year, since I was inspired by the vista, even in its overcast colours, before me.

4) the not quite 8″x10″ felt base for my picture

I had a piece of felt with me that I could use as a backing, about 8×10 inches so started laying on a white wool base. (the base layer was a bit uneven and seemed a bit kempy.) It was also not quite 8×10 so I had to spend a bit more time adding more width and a bit more height.

5) the not quite 8″x10″ felt base for my picture

 Next, it’s time to draw in the basic shapes using a bit from a micro-batt Bernadette was not pleased with (thank you, Bernadette! It worked perfectly for my use!)

I started to add the murky skies and reflected water.

6) Beginning to add sky and water

There is a small airfield nearby but I am not sure if that was the origin of the float plain we saw circle, then land and take off a number of times over the morning.

7) float plane practice landings on the Ottawa River

As the day progressed, more groups of people arrived with picnic paraphernalia and headed down the path toward the shoreline. More of the sailboat people came up the hill to check out the tents, their occupants and visit the museum. I have worked at this demo 3 or 4 times, this is the busiest I have seen it.

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   8-12) More of the Demo Team

As the afternoon went on I spotted the first bit of Blue sky!

13) the first bit of blue sky (still almost all grey)

Drat, do I have to add that in? I still haven’t got the foreground done!! Sneaky Weather!!

14) I didn’t get as far as I had hoped but I had a lot of fun

It was getting close to 4:30. Where did the time go? I will not win landscape artist of the year if I am this slow!! I will just have to practice more!!

Since it was getting late, I went in to take a peek at the ground-floor exhibits. It’s a fabulous 200-year-old stone house that is very grand for its time.  It has a central grand staircase and a fabulous main door.  The Dining room is at the top of the stairs and very posh when built.

I toured the ground level displays but did not feel inspired to try the stairs (it had been a long day by then).

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 15-21) inside the ground floor at Pinheys Point

By the time I was heading down the hall towards the kitchen, I was behind a woman telling a younger woman about living in the house when she was age 13 to 21 when her grandmother still lived there. It turns out she is one of the Pinhey descendants visiting from BC and had brought some artifacts for the museum from her part of the Pinhey family. She was telling her niece stories about living in the house in winter, flooding, and taking over from her aunt living with her grandmother in the old stone house. (Her parents lived nearby in another house on the property). I asked her about the spinning wheel in the kitchen room but didn’t want to interrupt her touring her old home. She said she remembered a different wheel when she was there.  She explained about the setup of the house when she lived there with her grandmother, who in the winter slept in the room that had been behind the stove in the kitchen (the warmest part of the old stone house). It was fascinating and I felt extremely lucky to hear some of her stories.

22) The Great Wheel in the kitchen

She told me about her Grandmother getting unexpected, uninvited visitors one winter while she had lived there. The hill path down to the side door by the kitchen, which was the house access commonly used, was particularly icy and treacherous that day. Some very well-dressed men arrived to see the house, it was the Governor General of Canada and his entourage. When they entered the house she was sent out to put ash on the ice so they would be able to leave, after her grandmother reluctantly gave them a tour of the historical house.

I returned to my spot but it was time to pack up, the weather was showing signs of improving further. I took a couple of quick reference shots as we packed up.

23-24) A couple of quick shots as the sky started to show more blue areas

It was time to pack up, Bernadette had been combing as well as carding and spinning so there were lovely tufts of fluff floating around the landscape. The staff was sure that there would be some stylish squirrel nest this winter!

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25-26 Bernadette droppings left to improve the homes of the locals

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27-33 a few more shots of the area as we were packing up and heading to the car

We had packed up and were on our way out when we met this guy coming in. He was a bit late for the demo. I don’t know if it was the weaving, spinning, felting or the loose fibre he was looking for.

34- the last visitor was just a bit late for the demo

I love to see auto-mobile-lawn decor. Maybe he/she, or some of the landscapes will inspire a bit of picture felting? Have fun and keep felting!

 

If you are in the Ottawa Ontario Canada area and you would like more info on Pinhey’s Point you can check here;  https://pinheyspoint.ca/

There is more info on the house here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horaceville,_Ottawa

 

PS Today is Mom’s 91st birthday, don’t tell, but there may be some of Ann’s amazing chocolate chip cookies involved in the celebration!

Working on more Ocean

Working on more Ocean

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I am still enjoying working with my water-themed bat to create ocean pictures. I finished the one that I was working on last time. I added some birds I mixed light grey and some white with so the seagulls wouldn’t look too bright. the 2 smaller ones looked ok but I tried to add black tips to the larger one’s wing tips and after some fiddling, and then more fiddling it ended up looking like a demented bat ( no picture of it at its worst) so I removed it and tried again.  All the birds are going left. maybe into the wind? I tried to make the larger one go right just to be different but it started going left. I pulled it off and flipped it over and by the time I tacked it down properly, it was going left again. But at least it doesn’t look like a demented batt.

On its way to being a demented bat

And a sailboat. Not the best boat but one of those little dingy boats with only one sale.

It was kind of boring so I added a red flag and 2 stripes for the sale and boat.

Better but I added another strip and I like it much better. I guess the rule of three works.

 

Then I decided I wanted to use some of the sparkly section. and started this one. I started it on my standard needle felting pad a foam kneeling pad. then my tendentious reminded me why I don’t use 6 needles at once and why I don’t do a lot of needle felting. Normally  I would lightly tack these down and wet felt them. Jan gave me a small wool felting pad last Monday and I didn’t have time to try it properly so I tried it here. Wow, what a difference in how jarring the jabbing is. I also took apart my tool and removed 3 of the needles. I’ve ordered one of the 10×10 pads. I have this one to this stage. All well felted down but not sure what to put in the picture to give more visual interest. Maybe some whale tails? Rocks? a bluff and some birds? Sorry to say I didn’t take any in-progress pictures of this. Though adding the blue sky looks pretty much the same on all of them.

I fiddled with this a bit to try to show you how much sparkle there is. I used a flash and then turned down the brightness. Turning down the brightness was counterintuitive.

Now I started another but that’s my next blog post.

 

First Light – Nuno Landscape

First Light – Nuno Landscape

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This is the nuno background I showed a while back. Surprise, surprise, I created another landscape!

I started by adding some yellow orange sheer fabric to indicate the sky and then started auditioning trees cut from dyed silk organza. The trees went through many forms as I went along auditioning colors, sizes and placement.

I began making the foreground trees darker and the background trees lighter. It felt like the sun was coming from behind the hill. So I continued to emphasize that light perspective as I went along.

I was getting closer, adding more shadows and light.

Then I decided that the ground felt too light in the foreground. So I auditioned some sheer scarves in this area. These are light nylon scarves, you can see the edge hasn’t been removed here. Once the edge is cut off, the scarf can be easily frayed to blend into the background. Then on to stitching everything down.

Here’s the piece after I finished hand stitching the applique pieces in place for the trees. I also use a very small seed stitch to stitch down the sheer scarf pieces.

I decided I need something more in the foreground. The darker marks in the middle foreground reminded me of these plants. I think these are a type of wild orchid. This is a photo I took on one of my morning walks in the woods.

Here are the foreground plants. They are a combination of torn black tulle, couched yarns and pistol stitch in perle cottons.

I felt that the bottom of the orchids was a missing something so I added in some grasses which were couched down.

Here is the final piece on it’s fabric background. I have decided to call it First Light. The coloring in this last photo is the closest to the original. Now all it needs is framing.

 

 

Let’s continue processing Muriel’s fleece

Let’s continue processing Muriel’s fleece

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The last time I wrote, I had begun washing a lovely Leicester Longwool fleece from a sheep named Muriel. I’m done with the washing now, so it’s time to continue processing those luscious curls.

Some lovely washed wool curls still in fleece format, on a table

Since I mostly have these curls for selling, they need to be bunched into bundles. I like to do 1oz. (or around 30g) because it’s not too large, making it affordable, and it’s a great size for those who want to use these curls as doll hair.

Leicester Longwool sheep curls sectioned into bundles, on a table

Once I’ve created the bundles, some of them are sold in natural wool form, but others are hand dyed into funky colours. It’s so much fun playing with all the bright colour combos, because you can really let your imagination go wild – a lot of people who wouldn’t imagine having rainbow hair themselves love nothing more than to do that to their dolls.

How about using curls for long tail spinning? Felting? The choices are so many and each will yield their own beautiful results.

hand dyed teal Leicester Longwool locks

I for one hope I’ve done Muriel proud with processing her fleece, and love the idea that she grew the fibre, I processed it and then I’ll be passing it on to someone who will, yet again, change it into something else. The cycle of creativity at work!

Have you done anything with long wools lately? Let me know.

PS – I’ve finally started a blog in my own website! In my first post, I explain the 5 reasons why wool is the best fibre (preaching to the choir here, I know…) If you’d pop by to have a read, I’d really appreciate it 🙂

Processing a really dirty fleece, I mean really, really dirty…

Processing a really dirty fleece, I mean really, really dirty…

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So many of us can’t resist a decent free fleece.  We all know that with a little work and water most fleece can produce some lovely fiber, right?  Early summer makes for full on fleece washing season.  I have two cheviot cross fleece that need to be washed before fall.  I use rain water as much as possible to rinse the fleece.  By rain water I do mean torrential down pours from thunder storms.  But lately we’re not getting rain unless it’s accompanied with horrific wind.

When I wash a fleece I leave it dry where ever I can find a space.  This fleece was particularly large, so it took up a lot of the deck.  I had to improvise by using net hangers.

Old lawn chairs that were past their prime

And a plant trellis I found at the local discount store which was particularly useful because it expands and then fold up for easy storage.

This cheviot is a cross with some other unknown breed.  It’s primarily for meat and was left to fool around in the fields and in the barn.  There is straw, and other bits of crud embedded in the top of the fleece, lots of lanolin protected the sides and under belly, so the majority of the fleece is decent condition. It was a lamb so there was amniotic tip damage as well as sun damage. But some of it was very nice, lovely and crimpy, as well as very soft.

Because the fleece was so questionable the only way I would ever consider processing this was with combs.  Combs have a tendency of breaking any fiber that is at all fragile.  This is exactly what I wanted to do with this fleece.  The combs would remove the damaged tips, trap the straw, manure, and other debris.  The major downside of using combs is wastage.  It would be huge on a fleece like this.  The other choice would be to hand tease the fibers from the debris, card and then spin the wool into yarn.  The end product would be a decent yarn, but I suspect it would be a bit fragile.  The fleece was just not worth that much work.  So out came the combs.

I have a few sets and am a firm believer in getting the best tools you can afford for the job at hand.  It won’t hurt you at all to get really beautiful tools either, its good for the soul. I did a test using my light combs, made by Roger Hawkins.  Sadly, these are no longer being manufactured, so I cherish the ones I have.  This is one of the reasons I only did a test with these little ones.  The wool was too dirty and too coarse for these combs.  The results were extremely good, but the output was tiny.

So I cracked out the larger set.  These need to be clamped to the table because they can take a lot of pulling and tugging when the combing gets a little rugged.  This set was made by Alvin Ramer, again these are not being manufactured anymore either.  One of the most important differences between the two sets is that the smaller set are relatively safe.  The tines are not sharp.  These are the ones I can safely and comfortably use while watching a movie or talking with someone.  On the larger set the tines are extremely sharp and must be used carefully.  Combing must be done at  90 degrees to the tines.  Some people think you comb down on the tines.  You do not; you comb across the tines.

This shows you the quantity of wool that can be loaded onto the larger comb.  It is locked into the block, which is clamped onto the table.  The other comb will be used in a downward motion to comb out the wool.  You can also see why this fleece is worth the work,  just look at that staple length!!

I did say there was lot of wastage – after three times getting combed this is what I threw into the compost, per combing.  So, I would comb once and there would be a tangled mess left behind.  That was removed and thrown out.  The wool was combed again, the tangle was removed and thrown out.  The wool was combed again, and once again, the tangle was removed and thrown out.  Finally the wool was dized off and turned into roving. The estimate for wastage is going to be 35% – 45% on the washed fiber.  The wastage on an unwashed fleece is anywhere up to 50% by weight. The final tally is wastage of approximately 65%.  I have to really estimate high because of straw, manure, lanolin and skirting.

The diz can be anything with a suitable hole.  Some people use buttons, I like this shell because it’s concave.  It needs to be turned as you diz to catch the little bits along the edge.

You need to see the difference in size between the two combs.  I have a third pair, but they are safely stored away.  They are the four pitch, sometimes called English wool combs that I used when processing Cotswold fleeces.

I really like the end result of combing.  It takes time and a bit of patience.  It also takes muscles that I forgot I had.  But it’s a wonderful way to salvage an unsalvageable fleece.  It’s a great way to enjoy a garden, park or private space while listening to birds, children playing in a pool, or a book, or music.  The fleece really was pretty awful, but the results are great.  I did a couple of test spins, singles, two ply and three ply.  The wool is resilient and bouncy.  It should dye nicely and ultimately be useful.

 

Screen Printed Felt Journal by Ruth Lane
Late Summer and Fall Online Classes

Late Summer and Fall Online Classes

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We have online classes coming up over the next several months. If you are looking for a new learning experience, please join us. The classes are listed below with a link to each class page. If you want to take the class but registration isn’t open yet, there is a place to contact us so you can be added to the student email list. You will then be notified when registration opens for that class. Make sure you include which class in your inquiry. You don’t need to be present at any certain time to participate in a class and you will receive PDF’s to keep with all the relevant information learned in the class.

Screen Printed Felt Journals by Ruth Lane

All four modules of my class, EMBELLISHING FELT WITH SURFACE DESIGN TECHNIQUES – A MIXED MEDIA APPROACH, will begin on August 12th. Registration opens today for these classes.

Nuno Felting with Paper Fabric Lamination

Experimental Screen Printing on Felt

Free Motion Machine Stitching on Felt

Printing, Stenciling, and Playing with Thickened Dye on Felt

Click on any of the links above to find out more about the class and to register and join in the fun.

Hanging Felted Spiral with Helene Dooley begins on August 26 and registration opens on August 12. Learn to felt this cool hanging spiral. Find out more here.

Felting Fantasy Fish with Galina Titova will start on September 6 and registration beings on August 23. Developing your own fantasy fish is such fun, will you join Galina?

Teri has two classes coming up in October. Creating a Felted Concertina Hat and a Felted Bags class.   Registration opens the first week of October and class begins on the third Thursday of October. So if you want to learn how to make hats or bags, this is a great opporunity.

Our Wet Felting for Beginners class is always available. You can start any time and follow along at your own pace. Register here.

 

MX dying silk scarf blanks.

MX dying silk scarf blanks.

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Sorry to say I have been too busy to felt again. I am hoping to have a little more time now my mom’s house is in possession of the new owners. I thought people might like to see this post  I made in 2012 about dying silk blanks with MX dye. this method works with big things too. I did a dress for my much skinnier self once and some boxer shorts. something else I learned since I posted this the first time is that you can use these dyes as acid dies by using a mild acid and heat. the colours aren’t quite as vibrant but if you can only get one kind of dye this will do double duty for you.

 

I dye my own silk and one of the ways I do that is with MX dye. MX Dye is a fibre-reactive dye and works on cellulose or plant fibres like cotton, linen and hemp. It also works on silk. As far as I know, silk is the only fibre that you can use both weak acid dyes that are for protein fibres and the MX dyes.

Scarves blowing in the wind.

I like to use the low water dye method. With this method, you use a jar and just a little water. What I do is scrunch or twist or pleat up my silk to be dyed. In this case, they are all about 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. Then you pack it into the bottom of a jar that is big enough to hold the silk and the dye (1/2 a cup) and the fixative (1/4-1/2 cup). It is important that it be a snug fit for this method to work.

I mix up 2 colours of MX dye in 1/4 cup of room temperature water. Pour them over the silk in the jar one at a time making sure the silk is covered with liquid. If it floats, as you can see a couple of my jars did, you need to carefully weigh them down with something non-metal. Metal will affect the dye. This is another reason you want them tightly jammed in the bottom of the jar but sometimes it happens anyway. Once the dye is in the jar you don’t want to disturb them. You don’t want the dyes to mix completely and give you a solid colour.

dye in jars

I am very impatient. So I usually go do something else for 20 min to an hour then I come back and add the fixative. With MX dye you have to raise the PH to get the dye to stick. The cheapest thing for this is PH up from the pool store. You can use washing soda not baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) or order it from your dye supplier but pool chemical is cheap, especially at the end of the season. I add a tablespoon for each cup of water including the water you’re mixing with. Stir to dissolve and then pour it into the jar. You should leave it for an hour to react but I am impatient as I said and usually dump everything out after about 20 min. Rinse the silk in cold water then hot soapy water then one more cold. Here are some results.

I am sorry the pictures aren’t better but the wind wouldn’t cooperate. They were dry in about 10 min.

Here are some others I’ve done over the years. It is a really fun and easy way to play with dye. You should give it a try.

 

If you want really good detailed instructions I would read about it on Paula Burch’s site. http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/lowwaterimmersion.shtml

 

A SHORT UPDATE ON MR. MER

A SHORT UPDATE ON MR. MER

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I was surprised (and pleased) at the interest in the crown needle post I just did. It is a cool little needle unequally suited to shallow detail work. Its low barb number, having only 3 in total all by the tip, does make it a slower needle but it’s not always a good idea to be in a rush.

The “not in a rush” has been impressed upon me again this past week as I shifted from needle review to a photo re-cataloging project for my husband. Nothing big, or heavy like arranging just the correct angle to capture in photographs his collection of Anvils (he is down to 3) or forges (he has 2, both on the back patio)!

What I was working with were Many, Many, Many tiny light objects. Unfortunately, I needed to sort through all of them, then spread pre-specified groups of them out to photograph.  The best spot to work for light was on the bed by the window. This put me in a working position of standing and bending forward. That is precisely the same position that I used to work in, which did not go as well as I had hoped. (Neuropathy is a neve yelling at you. It can scream –searing pain, it can lie to you –give false information, or it can refuse to talk to you –numbness or lack of proper function) the type of nerve and the location of its irritation give the location of where their displeasure is felt.  A nerve once annoyed can hold a grudge =this means if you irritate it then re-irritate it, it usually will take longer to forgive you and heal after each re-irritation.

I got help yesterday and am well over halfway on the first part of the photography project. Unfortunately, my leg is still intermittently lying to me even this morning, so no standing photography or poor ergonomic felting until that stops.

SO my plans for today’s blog are a bit on hold. I can bring you up to date with the project I had started with Mr. Mer. “The Quest for Hair”!  I have reminded Mr. Mer that Twist Fiber Festival in Quebec is only a few weeks away (Aug. 12th to 14th) https://festivaltwist.org/en/twist-fibre-festival/ .  If he would like to accompany me, he would have an even bigger selection of long locks to choose from. (I hope I can find vendors with 9 to 12-inch die or undyed locks that would be fashionable for a modern Mer person.) He seems very smitten with some of the locks from Bernadette’s stash but I think I can persuade him to wait till just after Twist.

Mr. Mer would like to send his thanks to Bernadette who raided her stash to help alieve his follicular challenges.  This is some of the fibre he has sorted through;

long fibers greens yelows long fibers Greens Purples long fibers with ruler1-3 sorting through the fibres from Bernadette

He has collected a small bag of fibre that he hopes goes well with his Northern pike lower half.

Mr. Mer (Merman) holds bag of long fibers in shades of green4 Mr. Mer’s Selection

Once he has a bit more he will have to decide on the hairstyle he wants. I am suggesting long since It would flow wonderfully as he swims. (vary Fabio if you are old enough – think historically inaccurate romance novel covers with beefy guys with long hair).  If he spends a bit of time online, he may find the Drummer Toll Yagami, from the Japanese band called Buck-Tick. He has an extra-long Mohawk hairstyle, it’s terribly impressive! I am not sure the ingredients to keep a Mohawk up would work in water. I may have to investigate if Mr. Mer seems interested. (There may be some Magic Mer hair gel I don’t know about.)

I got up extra early to work on my blog post and look who I found doing research on my computer! (Why does my computer freeze when I use it but he can spend all night browsing?)  I will show you what he was up to.

5 Compilation of research by Mr. Mer

Mr Mer thinks he should keep researching. It is a big decision and he is a bit overwhelmed with all the options! For now, he is on his way back to sitting in his project bag, clutching his bag of fibre, in deep contemplation.

Mr Mer with his bag of fiber ready to go back to his project bag and think

6 Ready to go to his project bag and have a think.

After all his research and contemplation he will likely want eyebrows and ears too! I will keep you updated on his progress.

 

Have fun with fibre and keep felting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experimenting With ArtFelt Paper

Experimenting With ArtFelt Paper

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Have you ever bought something, thinking “this will be great to use for…,” and then it sits on standby for a few years? Well, it’s even worse when you are a shop owner. Everything sparkles brightly, when you attend a vendor show, but then the product arrives and sits on your shelves. For me that item is ArtFelt Paper: but after a couple days of experimenting with it, I think it deserves more consideration.

ArtFelt Paper

ArtFelt Paper is a starch based product, created by Gerhard Schoppel, of Schoppel-Wolle in Germany. He invented it to make his daughter’s school felting project, easier. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ especially when helping a child with homework! This paper becomes a base on which wool and other fibers, can be fixed in place, until ready for felting. Designs can be made with shingled wool, or thin pre-felt material. You can draw on it with permanent markers, or outlined with pencil roving. Using a foam board or similar underneath, a barbed felting needle is used, to tack fiber to the paper. After the design is complete, it is wet with soapy water, rolled up in plastic and thrown in the dryer. ArtFelt paper can be used with wool and woven fabrics, like silk and cotton, with interesting results. We will be looking at all sorts of things, so lets get started.

My experiments began with batts I created on my drum carder. They were at least 70% wool with other fiber and fun bits blended in. I pulled shingles from the batt at first, and then thought, why am I not using the batt as is? So, I pulled a section off and thinned it out with my hands.

Batt on the left, Roving on the right

The following photos are labeled to show my process. I’m surely not an expert by any means, but there is very little information, on how to use the product. Most of the things I’ve seen it used for, are less than inspiring, so I am jumping straight into the fun part.

It is then placed in a low temperature dryer for 10 minute intervals; unrolling and turning 90 degrees as necessary. If you are like me, you put it in the dryer the second time and forget about it. No worries: it’s most likely still damp enough to reshape.
Zoom View shows the small tufts of fiber coming through cotton fabric.

I didn’t stop there… I used the same batt to test bulky wool yarn, sari silk yarn, and art yarn, simply layed across the batt. I applied to the thinnest amount of wool fibers over the yarns. (top photos) Then I went crazy with whatever I could find; blue bamboo threads, sequins on and pulled off thread, chopped up pieces of sari silk ribbon. (middle photos) Then I chopped up all sorts of art yarns to see what they would do. (bottom photos)

Then, I had to test out all sorts of silks on different fiber batts. The gold fiber batt (top photo below) is 100% merino wool. I used magenta silk noil nepps, hand dyed hankies (right side) under chopped sari ribbon pieces. The blue fiber batt, contained fibers that were obviously not wool: not much shrinkage. I applied silk lapp at the bottom, sari silk roving in deep blue, silk yarns, and a blue lock that fell off after felting.

I wanted to see how ArtFelt paper worked with silk fabric. To really test it thoroughly, I used 100% NZ Merino for both tests below. The top sandwich had; ArtFelt paper bottom/wool middle/silk fabric and sari ribbons on top. The result was not much shrinkage at all. The ribbons could easily be pulled off, and the silk fabric adhered, but felt very loose. The bottom sandwich…I didn’t take a photo of the other side!! The layer order is; silk fabric bottom/ArtFelt paper middle/wool and decorative bits on top. You can see the silk peeking out from the lower left corner.

The wool layer felted really well. Even the bits of fiber are secure. How did the silk fabric do? It adhered really well to the wool fiber. It looks the ruching on the cotton fabric, but it has a softer, genteel look.

ArtFelt Paper between the silk and merino layers.

I think the possibilities are definitely positive for this product. I think there are still more things that can be done with it. I did a couple more samples to see how it would work for pre-felt pieces. The green was some wisps of fiber I had lingering in my stash. It is very thin. I thought it could be useful, as trees or grasses, in a landscape. Then I carded a batt to create a pre-felt of sky and water or land. The last photo is a brooch by Louise Giordano, (http://scarf-it-up.net) who used ArtFelt paper to create the piece.

9/18/2022 Update: 35% ArtFelt discount period has ended for this article.

Capi