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Summer Blues

Summer Blues

When Cathy (Luvswool) and I went to the Midwest Fiber Fair a couple of weeks ago, in our conversations I mentioned I had an indigo dyeing kit I’d like to try.  With some discussion on the forum about the smell indigo produced, I wanted to try to do it while the weather was still nice outside.  Neither of us had used indigo before, so, I invited Cathy to join me in a day of dyeing.

I didn’t have a plan for what I wanted to dye or any specific projects in mind to use the dyed materials.  But Cathy came well prepared with plenty of roving and fabrics to dye.

To save some time, I had set up the buckets for wetting and indigo along with the plastic coverings before she came. It was an overcast day to begin with with a nice breeze across the yard.

set upWe followed the instructions, mixing the indigo, then the chemicals and stirred it in then let it sit for an hour.  But there was no bloom as described.  We reread the instructions and stirred again; then decided to skim the top and begin.

After the first batch, we returned the runny bloom back to the bucket and let our fabric oxide.  It all looked fine, so we continued the process with the rest. Once the first batch was fully oxidized we tag teamed and I washed and rinsed while she dipped the next batch. Strangely enough after the first batch the bloom began to grow.

With a brief break for lunch, we managed to get everything into the pot we both had to dye along with the breaks for letting the pot sit after stirring.  It was a busy day with the dyeing, rinsing and washing. And the day got hotter and sunnier as we worked.

Cathy had spent the evening before rubber banding a large piece of cotton gauze.

Cathy tied corks

Cathy cork cloth

She also brought along a big pile of Domestic 56s roving, some kid mohair yarn, nettle and lace table cloth, miscellaneous bits and pieces of fabric.

Cathy domestic Cathy yarns rovingcathys laceI dyed two blouses that were old, but stained, a very old handkerchief with my name on it, yarn, mulberry silk, pencil roving, thick and thin yarn, a linen doily, some merino and cheviot roving.

sleeveless blouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

silk and thick n thin stuffI had wadded up some cotton voile and rubber banded it all around.  The end result is the piece draped on the chair.  I like the random patterns it produced.

cotton gauzeCathy brought some corks with her, so I used the corks on a piece of silk gauze.

silk n corksShe also dyed some old thrift store “lace” bedspread pieces, an old linen pillow case, a piece of muslin and a cat mat.  

Since it was getting late in the afternoon and Cathy had a long drive home, we packed up her goodies and she finished rinsing and drying some of her items at home the next day.

We were pleased with the outcome of our “Summer Blues” and the opportunity to give some old items new life and others some pretty blue color.

Threads and Yarns

Threads and Yarns

Around this time last year I was still doing the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge. I struggled with it, and didn’t always enjoy it, but I did like what I produced when I used some felt offcuts from a piece I’d made with natural wools for placemats and coasters. I used my own handspun thread to sew the stitches. This is one I made using chain stitch, and this is one using cretan stitch. I hadn’t used my threads in a while, but recently I’ve been inspired by my flickr-friend, Marchi Wierson, a sculptural fibre artist who uses a variety of techniques in her work, such as wet felting and crochet, and loves working with natural wools and fibres. Her recent vessel commission and some gorgeous natural fibre yarns had me rummaging through my wools and fibres and getting my spindles out to spin more thread and yarn. I decided to use three shades of Shetland Wool.

shetlandI pulled off some of the tops from each shade.

tops

Then I looked through my embellishment fibres for some I thought would make a nice match. I chose Soybean top, viscose top and flax.

fibresI added some of each fibre to the Shetland tops.

fibreThen I blended them by hand.

blend
I got a couple of my spindles out, this is one I made and painted a few years ago.

spindleI made a small amount of thread, though even a small amount of wool and fibres goes a long way when spinning thread. This is it wound around the spindle.

threadThen I blended up some more Shetland and fibres and spun a thicker yarn. I will probably use the yarn in a wet felting project, though I have used them for needlefelting before.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERADo have a look at Marchi’s photostream if you have time, her work is amazing and inspiring 🙂

You might have noticed a few changes to the site recently. We’ve been updating it and adding more photos to the galleries. We’ve also added a new page for Fabrics, and Ann’s ever popular Cat Cave ‘how to’ is now listed on the Wet Felting Tutorials page.

Giveaway—Beyond Nuno PDF e-book

Giveaway—Beyond Nuno PDF e-book

coverAs a big Thank You for all the support I’ve had since I started felting and blogging, I’m giving away a copy of my new PDF e-book called Beyond Nuno. It’s all about using different fabrics in wet felting, why and how they felt the way they do, how different effects are achieved etc. I hope to show that there’s more to nuno felting than just ruffled silk scarves and that it is possible to control the outcome of nuno felting. For more details you can read the full blurb on Craftsy or my blog.

You don’t need to do anything special to enter, just leave a comment on this post. If you’d like to spread the word through your blog or facebook etc, it would be very much appreciated but it isn’t a requirement. I will randomly draw the winner 8 days from now on Monday 4th March 2013, so please check back to see if you’ve won and leave a comment on the announcement post so I can contact you with the download information.

compilation of pagesGood Luck!  🙂

This Giveaway is now closed, to see the winner, please click here.

Just For Fun

Just For Fun

It’s been quite a while since I made a piece of felt just for the fun of it. And quite a while since I made a piece of felt without worrying about even layers, straight edges, nice corners etc 🙂  So it was a lot of fun making this piece of green felt. I got out all my greeny shades of wool, fabric and fibres and started laying it out.

I started with two plain layers of merino tops, then added a third layer of lots of different greeny shades of merino blended with fibres like plastic, viscose, silk, banana and bamboo. Then I started adding all the other fibres, fabrics and yarns. I unravelled some fancy fibres I had in green, yellow and blue shades.

I used fabrics like organza, silk, tulle and a few shades of cotton gauze

There were a few sparkly bits

And lots of shiny bits too 🙂

What have you been working on just for fun lately?

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