felt slippers – Felting and Fiber Studio

Finished Slippers and Something New

December 13, 2018 Shepherdessann Comments 14 comments

I had planed to do a post about The Holiday Card I sent to Ruth but it hasn’t arrived at her house yet so I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Instead plan B. As promised some pictures of the finished slippers. I made these for a sample for my slipper class a few weeks ago.

I left the one on the right flat so people could see how it was cut. I will steam or wet it and put it into the correct shape. The one on the left is how is should look . I plan to make a leather sole for them.

The other thing I did for the class was leave one as it was when the felting was finished to show how the wool migrates through the decoration.

And the other one I shaved with a regular disposable razor to show how you can bring it back up.

And now for my something new. It is something I have been talking about and thinking about for a while. Can you guess what it is.

How about now

or now

I am sure you know now

A new camera! It was on sale so now was the time. I had to use my phone to take the pictures because it is so new the battery is still charging. Now I need to figure out some good background and lighting I can use for pictures in my windowless studio. I am thinking some sort of shear on a frame to defuse the harsh light and some wight card for bouncing the light. Maybe a big light gray and or white felt sheet for background.

Felted slipper class

December 5, 2018 Shepherdessann Comments 13 comments

This last Saturday I taught a slipper class to 6 lovely ladies. I gave them a choice of templates, so there were different types of slippers being made at the same time. We used the one that looks like bunny ears, the one with little pointy the ears on the sides, boots and some pointy ones. They used Corriedale wool for the slippers. I prefer something like Fin wool but it is hard to get it in colours and everyone wants colours. So Corriedale is a good compromise. After everyone made templates it was onto laying out the wool.

Then on to rubbing rolling

Once everything was hanging together well, it was time to take the resists out. You might remember Christine made one of the pixie hats in the hat workshop a few weeks ago. Hat Class. Hat Class She is planning for curly toes.

And on to fulling. There is scrunching and throwing of course and we had a washboard and a car mat to help with the shrinking. Sorry I have no pictures of that.

You can custom fit your slipper right on your food of course. You can really see how much it has changed compared to the one that hasn’t been fulled yet.

This one was almost done.

Judy’s are the only ones managed to get a picture of at the end of class. She put a little of all the embellishment fibers on them to see how they felted. She still wants to a just the top at the opening. She is going to make insoles and add a leather sole.

I am adding this in. Judy had some felt insoles and she needled some special supports for her feet onto it and fit them into her new slippers.

And Christine’s curly toes

More Bits

November 19, 2018 Shepherdessann Comments 14 comments

This week I did a few things. I put hang tags and price stickers on all the dryer balls, bags, soap and ruffle neck scarves that go to the Log Farm for sale. At shows I usually just use signs when I have groups of things that are all the same price. I delivered those and almost immediately got a call from the Museum store saying they needed more soap and dryer balls. Yesterday I made up the dryer balls and popped them into the washer today.

I would show you what they look like done but my dryer died. Thats a job for tomorrow now.

I did however get some soap felted.

The other thing I got started on Friday(I think) was some slippers for samples for a class I have on Dec 1. I didn’t have a sample of the ear template style.

I only got as far as laying out.

They will also be a sample of Finnish wool. We use Corriedale for the class. Its a good felter without being to fine like merino and it comes in lots of colours. People seem to want colour. This will show them what another kind of wool felts up like.

That was my week. I hope you managed some felting done too.

Ruffle Scarves and Slippers

October 28, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 12 comments

I am still working toward my up coming show. I have been making some short ruffle scarves that should work well inside winter coats. I use a template to get the proportions right and have them shrink to the right size. You can see the template below the scarf below and you can see how much it shrank.

Here are the 3 I have done. In the first one you can see the ruffles and then all rolled up looking like hand weights.

I also taught a slipper class last week end. I couldn’t find my sample s so had to quickly make a couple. I made little boots for my grandson. her they are stuffed with plastic and covered in some pantyhose ready for the washer and the finished pair.

I tried the heart shaped template. It was on the Forum but I can’t find it right now.

They are not fulled enough but I needed to stop to have them dry in time. It was good really because they could feel the difference between Fynn’s fulled slippers and mine. I will stuff them and put them through the washer. I am sorry to say I forgot to take any pictures at the class.

And lastly another inspiration picture. The leaves are now starting to fall so now the ground and the trees match and it is time to play in the leaves.

Fynn likes them.