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Cat Cave

Cat Cave

Comments 12 comments

I should be making more scarves but I wasn’t in the mood so I decide to do a cat cave.  I wanted to make one that looked like a pebble. I used some gray I had on hand. I have no idea what it is but it felt like a medium wool.  I put a paw print on before covering the bottom with the resist,

paw print

I add a spot on the top so I know where to cut the whole later. I rubbed it and rolled it and then into the dryer for a tumble.

wool coming through the cover You can see how the wool migrates through the cover when it comes out of the dryer.  I cut the hole and rolled it up the other way and back in to the dryer. Next I rolled it on a car floor mat. It has nice ridges but they are flexible. I roll it back and forth on the mat. I do not rub it on the ridges. It would got to hard on the surface.

 

 

shrinkage paw print finished

I am not sure its hard enough now that it’s dry. I my wet it down and give it a trip through the front load washer. If it works out I will see if I can pass the jury to get into the Shelter Exhibition. http://tangledfiberartscollective.wordpress.com/calls-for-entries/

 

 

 

 

Scarves

Scarves

Comments 11 comments

I have not been nearly as productive as Ruth but I did finally get an afternoon to do some felting. I did 2 scarves the first is a purple and pink one. First I put the purple wool on but when I wet it the wool completely disappeared in to the silk so I added some pink curls to perk it up. Not a very exiting scarf but I like the way the wool pulled in. I doesn’t show well on the mannequin but it was to windy to take pictures outside.

wool on scarf
wool on scarf
add pink curls
add pink curls
finished
finished

The next one is brass? cream? gold?  and green. I put green leave all over then thought it look pretty boring so added the purple highlight, still I don’t like it so I added the greenish gray leaves with the orange highlight.

close up
close up
full length
full length

It wasn’t very thrilling but I didn’t know what to add so went ahead and felted it. It turned out all right but nothing to get very exited about.

finished
finished

So do you like the colour choices I made? What colours would you have picked for this silk? What would you have added after the leaves?

Bits and Pieces

Bits and Pieces

Comments 18 comments

This week has been about getting things moving towards upcoming shows. I spent an afternoon wrapping soap in wool and putting them in little nylon bags ready to felt.

soap

I sent another afternoon getting sheep parts ready to felt. The body parts are roughly needle felted then wet felted. The legs are wet felted.

sheep parts

This is what they look like when they are all put together and their wool is added.

sheep small

Lastly I have been soaking a fleece. I have no idea what kind of wool it is. it was a bag given to me a couple of years ago. Here it is getting a rain water rinse hanging in my apple tree. That wasn’t on purpose but the thunderstorm came in before I got it back into a bucket for its first rinse.

wool hanging

 

 

Nuno Felt Experiments for the Studio Challenge

Nuno Felt Experiments for the Studio Challenge

Comments 10 comments

Every quarter on the forum we do a challenge.   http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/thread/622/second-quarter-challenge  I thought I better get on with it myself before the challenge runs out. I challenged people to try nuno felting or to try it on something they hadn’t before. I decided to try some fabrics that I wasn’t sure would work, to see what would happen. There are lots of pictures. I did shrink them so I hope they don’t overwhelm anyone’s computer connection.

For all the pieces I used merino wool in a contrasting colour so I could see how the wool migrated better.

The first is  a polyester knit that is like t-shirt material. It feels a lot like cotton.

poly knit

this is what it finished like. It worked really well. I think because it is a soft knit the fabric fibers could easily move out of the way letting the wool through.

polly knit felted polly knit felted cloce

This one is from a poly knit dress more like the polyester we used to wear in the 70’s.

polyester dress

It worked fairly well but it is heavier material and the wool didn’t come through as much.

poly dress felted poly dress felted close

These next two are different sides of the same silk fabric cut from a woven silk jacket. it was a pretty little jacket but small and out of date. The texture of the fabric is great, quite 3 dimensional. This is the right side.

silk jacket right side

silk jacket right side felted 1silk jacket right side felted close

I think it worked really well.

This is the wrong side.

silk jacket wrong side

It didn’t felt as well, I do not know why the fiber would not travel through fabric as well in this direction but as you can see not nearly as much wool migrated to the top.

silk jacket wrong side felted silk jacket wrong side felted close

Lastly is a mystery fabric. it is cut from a blouse. Both sewn into the seam together. one said 100% silk and the other said 100% polyester.

maybe silk

It did work very well but you can’t see its shine much at all. You do see it more in person.

maybe silk feltedmaybe silk felted close

There is still time to join in the challenge. Try something new or show us something old you tried that worked or didn’t. I think the failures or things that went sideways are sometimes the most interesting.

Felt Cuffs in Progress

Felt Cuffs in Progress

Comments 8 comments

This week I am working on a few cuffs. These will have bubbles in them so they have to start out really long as when I put the marbles in them to get the bubbles they shrink fast.

These are made with commercial prefelt.  Then some silk offcuts from other projects and some throwsters waist

cuffs ready 1 cuffs ready 2 cuffs ready 3 cuffs ready 6

The bottom right picture is the back side of one of these. It is covered in silk throwsters waist. The silk will show up inside the bubbles.

The back ground is prefelt and  a green batt  cut  with my rotary cutter to get the nice neat rectangles. There is throwsters waist and some blue faced leicester curls that I dyed.

cuffs ready 4 cuffs ready 5

Next I wanted to try something different.

cuffs ready 7

The red is a thick piece of prefelt form an other experiment. It wouldn’t stay folded over the curls until after it was wet down but I forgot to take a picture of it. I added some throwsters waist onto the top after I folded it.

Can you tell I was in the mood for throwsters waist?  I do love how it shines and goes all curly. The next time it’s my turn to blog I hope to have them done so I can show you how they turned out.

Felted Flowers

Felted Flowers

Comments 15 comments

It has been busy around here as we are starting at a new Farmers’ market this weekend and we have been getting ready. This was difficult because they hadn’t sent us any thing about being accepted until a few days ago. There has not been much time for felting but I have managed to do a little. I made wet felted flower pins last year. They sold fairly well but the ones I had left seem tired looking so I am sprucing them up by needle felting some lines on them.
flowers

The other exiting thing is that a couple of weeks ago I wont the free give way from world of wool on face book. they sent me a grab bag of wool. The yellow and the purple seem to be silk but I am not sure because the didn’t label the different “balls”. It was a real surprise to win because I never will anything. the wools are great colours and will get put to good use.
wow prize

Classes at the Conference

Classes at the Conference

Comments 10 comments

This last weekend I was teaching at the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners biannual conference. Here are pictures of the Nuno felting class. There where only 3 people in this class. It was a preconference class. The full conference started that evening with the workshops the next day.

Here they are putting the wool around the edges.

putting wool around the edge of the scarf 2 putting wool around the edge of the scarf

Then laying out the pattern.

making the pattern making the pattern 3 making the pattern 2

Close up

layout close up layout close up 3 layout close up 2

Fixing a spot that didn’t take. We needled it down and gave it a little rubbing on both sides and it was all fixed.

fixing a spot

Finished scarves

finished scarf 2 finished scarf finished scarf 3

And the happy ladies with their scarves and a sample done on cotton that they had time to do at the end of class.

happy felters

At the last minuet the needle felting teacher had to pull out with a family emergency so they asked me to fill in. I didn’t take any pictures of the process we only had 3 hours to complete a project so we really had to move.  Here they are at the end, happy with their projects. Four sheep ( I supplied the legs so they would have time to complete them. ), one pincushion flower and a little person.

Happy needle felters

All in all it was a great time with lots of friendly people. I will share more about the conference in another post later.

Future Felting

Future Felting

Comments 17 comments

Future felting comes from lambs. Here are some of this years lambs outside enjoying the spring sunshine. Most of our lambs were born in the winter so they are not tiny anymore but they are very cute non the less.

lamb 1 lamb 2 lamb with face markings 2 lamb with face markings

I love the face markings on the two above.

Here is the bottle lamb that was born Christmas day, Chrisy. she thought you would like to she her woolly head close up.

chrissy close up

Here is Chrisy with a last years lamb.

lamb and last years lamb

This week we had a non fiber animal born. We had a little Dexter calf.

calf and mom calf

Despite appearances she is a little girl.  I had a really hard tome getting any pictures. Her mom is very protective and seem to think having her picture taken is a dangerous thing.

Also hanging out with the sheep is Geoffrey the goose and some chickens with their very fancy rooster.

chickens geofery

Soon it will be shearing time I have plans along with a willing friend to make some coats. I hope to get some usable wool. Right now they get so many burs and so much hay in their wool it really isn’t usable. I would also like to get a few black fleeces that aren’t bleached out by the sun.

That’s a snapshot of what going on in the barn yard this week. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

 

 

Small Felt Art

Small Felt Art

Comments 22 comments

A little while ago I ordered some pendant blanks in a variety of shapes and sizes. They open up so you can put pictures in them but you can see the picture when it is closed.  I made some small art works. I used pieces of felt I already had and needled  and sewed on the designs. Do you recognise the spiral sheep background? It’s the “hole” form the round bird house with the spiral design.

cityscape sheep spiral purple tree abstract 1

You can se about how big they are from the keyboard in the city scale picture. I changed the black and pink sheep into a white and pink sheep before putting it into its locket. The black doesn’t show as well in person as it does in the picture.

locket 1 locket 2 locket 3 locket 4

I didn’t have another round one the right size for the city scape. The one with the purple curls in it is just that, some Blue Faced Leister curls. The locket is about one inch across and I didn’t think I could really make a picture for in it.  I like making these small pieces but now I have to decide what to charge for them.

group locket

Second Quarter Challenge: Nuno Felt

Second Quarter Challenge: Nuno Felt

Comments 14 comments

This quarters challenge is about nuno felt.  If you have never tried it, try it.  Pick an open weave fine fabric and have ago. If you have tried it before put it on something you have never put it on before. If you make nuno scarves all the time try putting some fabric on a hat or pot or bag.

green hat

If that’s old hat they try some different fabrics, silk, cotton, linen, hemp, or synthetic.

merino and cotton sample
merino and cotton sample

If that’s not enough of a challenge try some fabrics you don’t think will work. Maybe thicker silk or cotton, maybe some lace or a woven plastic.

onion bag

If you need some inspiration you can download Zed great book called:  BEYOND NUNO: A Guide to Using Fabrics in Wet Felting. http://feltbyzed.blogspot.co.uk/p/e-books.html

Beyond Nuno

Be creative and take Nuno where you have never taken it before. Don’t forget to tell us about what you’ve tried and how it turned out.