Bamboo top – Felting and Fiber Studio

Lincoln, Soy, Bamboo and Knitting

February 24, 2015 zedster66 Comments 19 comments

This is the back of a piece of felt I made from Lincoln wool tops:

I love the way the characteristics of the different breeds reappear with felting, when they’re not very evident from the wool tops. And you get such gorgeous edges with the curly breeds. On the front, I used a blend of Soy top and black bamboo tops. I just blended the tops by hand and laid them on the top:

The shape, texture and colours reminded me of finding oyster shells on the beach. This is the bottom left corner:

This is a close up of the texture:

And a close up of the back:

I still haven’t had chance to even look at the wool I ordered from Wollknoll because I’ve had builders in … for fibre addicts in the UK who don’t already know, the Euro is really low against the Pound at the moment (about 73p to €1) so have a look at their site, 100g of wool is starting around 72p… don’t be alarmed at their prices though, they’re usually given per kilo! I did manage to sneak a ball of rainbow Merino out of the box though and do a little bit of spinning, I also used the tufts I’d used for my colour wheel a while ago. I left it on the spindle for a couple of days then knitted a square from it:

Here’s a close up

And because I love them, a supermacro:

I’m not convinced I’m casting off properly though, all my squares look like they’re one stitch too short!

Suffolk, Banana, Masham and Bamboo

July 7, 2014 zedster66 Comments 18 comments

I’ve used banana fibre tops with Suffolk wool tops before, so I know they look really interesting together. I fluffed up some of the banana fibre, and added it to the top of the Suffolk. Though I used lessl of the banana fibre than I have previously, I wasn’t disappointed by the results.

This angled picture shows the texture more:

This is a close up of the centre part

And this is a supermacro of the wool and fibre texture

In the middle along the right edge is an area where the fibres are a little thicker. In the top photos it looks quite dense, but a supermacro close up shows the tangle of wool and banana fibres.

And from this angle you can see the pattern even better

Another combination of wool and fibres I found really interesting is Grey Masham and Bamboo top. I’m not sure if Masham is classed as a coarse breed, I think its Micron count is between 29 and 34. It’s certainly more ‘wiry’ than fine wools, but is still quite soft to the touch. The contrast of the wool and sheen of the bamboo was quite striking, yet at the same time, the wool seemed to ‘absorb’ the fibre. This is the whole piece from an angle.

This is slightly closer and from above, there’s an area in the centre with barely any fibre on it:

This is a close up of the dense patch just to the right, it’s interesting to see how the fibres are still affected by the characteristics of the wool even when they are thicker.

This is a close up of the area just left of centre at the top of the piece, showing dense and sparse patches.

I hope you’re not getting bored of these because I have about 30 other breeds of wool and about 15 natural fibres, I’m not going to do the maths, but that’s quite a variety of combinations I can come up with!

New Notebook Cover

October 22, 2013 zedster66 Comments 10 comments

I thought I’d make myself a felt cover for a ring binder notebook I’ve started using for notes about batts, fibre packs and etsy listings. I made a piece of felt a few weeks ago from merino and embellishment fibre blends. I used lots of different fibres: Milk Protein fibre, Hemp, Flax, Ramie, Banana, Bamboo top and fibre; Viscose top and fibre, Trilobal nylon, Acrylic laps, Plastic fibre and Egyptian cotton. This is the whole piece after felting:

I recently made another notebook and made the straps to go through the Delrin clips from felt, and it looked really nice, so I thought I’d do the same for this one. This is the front:

It took hours to sew (at least 9 episodes of Hawaii Five – 0!) because I machine stitched the straps into place on the back (with my hand operated Singer), and then hand sewed everything else and finished off the edges with blanket stitch.