Browsed by
Tag: making a batt

2nd Quarter Challenge Guest Post

2nd Quarter Challenge Guest Post

Comments 19 comments

Today we have a Guest post by Leonor from Felt Buddies:

A few days ago, I decided to respond to this quarter’s challenge and make a colour palette out of a favourite picture of mine. I decided to go with one of my cat Squish.

I used Color Palette FX. If you are using an image of something real, you can almost make sure the colours will go well with each other in different ways and thus have a nice palette to work with.

Jungle SquishIn our daily lives we get so used to just looking at things with narrow focus – my cat is black, his eyes are yellow, plants are green, light is white. But if I take the time to actually notice things properly, I’ll see that there is depth to his black, with purples and blues showing, and his eyes have a beautiful green popping out. The plants are at least three tones of green and the reds and oranges just catch your eye. And look, the light is white, ecru, and yellow.

This is the result of the website’s narrowing of colours, still probably more than I’d notice with a naked eye.

Squish PaletteThe next step would be to choose the colours and the medium to work them. I went with a limited palette of the closest colours I had in my fibre stash. Below, starting on the bottom left: sari silk waste, natural white mohair, three batches of merino (purple, mint green and forest green), short silk fibres and dyed bamboo.

StashThen it was drum carder fun. I had to decide how to layer the fibres: most of the merino was placed first and then I added the other fibres, placing some in between the wool layers as well.

Drum Carder 1More fibre added. I just kept adding fibre until I ran out of merino (or the drum was full, whichever came first. It was the former.)

Drum Carder 2The bottom of the batt…

Bottom of Batt…and here the top of the batt is in all its glory. I really like how it turned out.

Long FibreThe finished item. That top left pile is fibre I took out of the drum carder when I was done.

Rolled Up Fibre 1bMy next step is to spin this, but as always, I still fear my spinning knowledge won’t do it justice, so I suspect it might stay in my stash for a while. Here’s hoping for some (near) future courage…

Rolled Up Fibre 2How about you, what are your plans for this quarterly challenge?

New Drum Carder

New Drum Carder

Comments 19 comments

At least once a year I’ve contemplated buying myself a drum carder. But after seeing the wool blends Ann carded a few weeks ago, I seriously considered it, and after looking at a link Judith gave me to ebay, I bought myself a gorgeous handmade Ash drum carder from the Classic Carder company. I wasn’t very good on my first few tries, but I soon got the hang of it 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI thought I should have an ‘aim’ instead of just going mad and making lots of nice coloured batts, so I decided to  work out roughly how much wool I’d need for one layer if I’m making a piece of felt big enough to make a cover for an A6 notebook. I got my template out, chose a coppery bronze colour theme and then laid out the different coloured wools in different proportions.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI then gathered all the colours up, weighed them and kept notes. I’d usually think to do this after the fifth time of laying out colours, so I’m impressed with myself 🙂

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI added some small amounts of flax and soy top to a couple of the lighter colours, and it’s not very obvious from the photo, but I added black bamboo to the natural brown merino.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI was impressed with how it looked after just one turn through the carder, but I wanted it more subtle than it had turned out, so I put the wool through again. I really like how it turned out the second time. I’m so glad I finally got a carder. It looks gorgeous, is incredibly well made and turns out the most gorgeous batts.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
I’ve been thinking for a long time about making up ‘experimental’ or ‘inspiration’ fibre packs to sell on etsy. Working out what to put in there to make it worthwhile with our postage prices was difficult, but Marilyn recently suggested selling wool as well to make it more of a kit. I had a think about how to do it and came up with the idea of including just enough wool to do one layer, a nice blend for the top. I thought this batt would be perfect for the first one as it’s the same colours I used for my coppery bronze piece that so many people liked. It gave me an excuse to get out my favourite shades of organza too.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI measured and weighed the organza, picked out some matching cotton gauze, novelty art yarns and silk throwster’s waste like I used on my coppery piece, and also made another little batt to make sure there was enough. But I think after lots of weighing and measuring, the pack is finished. I just need to write up the description when I get back later today, but then I’ll list it on etsy.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERALet me know what you think of it, is it a good selection of fabrics and fibers?

%d