Felting and Fiber Studio

My friend Paula and I have been working on a nuno felting class we’ll be teaching soon. It’s a nuno felted jacket based on the Cocoon Jacket that was featured in Felt Magazine by Polly Stirling. Essentially, you nuno felt yardage and then turn up the short ends of the fabric to make a seam for the jacket shoulders and sleeves.

Here’s the back of the jacket. I used 5mm silk habotai with a batt that I carded containing merino wool, Tencel, Seacell, silk noil and soy fiber. I then added wisps of  black merino pencil roving and some preyarn in green.

Here’s the piece after felting but before I dyed it the deep red color.

Here’s the front of the jacket. I sewed the seams before I dyed the jacket. I used acid dyes so the Tencel, Seacell and soy fiber didn’t take the dyes giving a beautiful contrast of fibers.

You can see how the plant-based fibers stayed closer to white and give a nice contrast from the deep red and black. The green preyarn is now a deep brown.

Here’s a closer view. I really like how this jacket turned out and hopefully, I’ll get some photos of Paula’s jacket today to show you later. Hers is completely different from mine as she used already dyed wool and silk fabric to start the project. We wanted to show the students different options and ways to do different designs. I’m planning on making more of these in the future as it is a simple way to make a jacket.

I got a photo of Paula’s jacket to show you. She hasn’t sewn the seams yet but isn’t it cool?