natural fibres – Page 2 – Felting and Fiber Studio

Meet the Supplier: Dreamspin Fibres

February 7, 2014 shepherdessann Comments 18 comments

We would like you to meet one of our sponsors and a friend of mine Maureen Harding of Dreamspin fibres. We met a few years ago at a fiber conference and became friends. We live far enough apart that we only get together a few times a year but we always have a great time felting and trying new things. She doesn’t mention it here but she has a sale on select fibers at the moment.

Q-4 Three types of fibre you can’t live without?

Merino, silks, silk fabric but other fibres depending on the project

Q-3 Have you always been a felter?

I’ve been felting for 15 years, before that I was spinning and knitting.

Q-2 Two tools you use all the time?

Pool noodle and plastic window screening. (and ball brause)

Q-1 One fibre art technique you love the most?

I have to say felting. But also enjoy spinning and knitting

What is your business?

We sell wools, prefelts, fabrics for nuno felting, a few felting tools, mostly for felters.

Why and when did you start selling fiber?

It was an outgrowth of my interest in sheep and wools. Initially I raised sheep, learned to spin, learned to felt, and started buying other fibres wholesale for my own purposes. After a while I started selling fibres at fibreart venues and would make up articles to show what can be done with the fibres. People started asking me if I would teach them how, and this led to doing workshops in felting.

What kind of items do you sell?

As well as fibres for felters, I also sell felted articles such as nuno scarves, felted hats, and felted bags at various shows throughout the year.

What do you think makes your business different from similar ones?

We pride ourselves on our fast service, orders are made out the same or the next day. We offer free shipping on orders over $100 in North America. And we are always happy to offer assistance and advice over the phone, or email.

Where are you located?

Near Campbellford in Ontario

Where can we find you on the internet

Dreamspinfibres.ca

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Looking Ahead 2014

January 3, 2014 zedster66 Comments 17 comments

I think every year I plan to be more organised over the coming year. I don’t think I’ve done too badly, I did rearrange some rooms to make my felting and craft stuff more accessible, so it should be even easier this year since I can now leave projects out and don’t have to spend valuable time tidying everything away. I’m going to keep writing notes and lists of things to do in my diary each day , so I don’t forget.

I really enjoyed the craft fair that I did, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to do more this year. Just working out how to find out where they are happening will be an improvement on last year 🙂 I photographed and printed out my ‘inventory’ of all the things I’ve made which makes it easier to keep track, so I’m going to keep up with that aswell this year. I used to upload everything to flickr, but I find it hard to use since the change.

I’d like to be able to work on a new e-book this year or at least more tutorials. As much as I love our weather here, it isn’t the best for taking photos, so that is a big hindrance in doing tutorials. The light in Winter can be perfect, but some days there’s barely 5 hours of ‘daylight’, so finding the perfect conditions can be difficult. The light in Summer is weird: pale, hazy with a yellow tint, so maybe it’s time to invest in a lightbox. I would also love to be able to get involved in community workshops, something which people will really enjoy doing, learning a new usable skill and giving people an alternative creative outlet and way to express themselves. Hopefully if I get enough interest I can also get funding. But if anyone has any openings for a felter one day a week, I’m open to offers 🙂

Two things I’d like to try out more with felting is embellishment fibres and using wool to create the ‘design’ or surface interest. I don’t think I’d ever be able to do anything like those gorgeous wet felted paintings, but I do enjoy using wool in a more controlled way to create an interesting effect.

I’ve been working on what I call my ‘other fibres project’ off and on for years, using embellishment fibres to add interest to felt. I made a few pieces with bamboo recently and enjoyed that a lot, especially adding texture and shape to felt, so I’d like to find time to work on that more.

Thanks for supporting us this year 🙂 Have you made plans for this year?

Natural Wools and Bamboo

December 3, 2013 zedster66 Comments 19 comments

I only managed to get photos of two of the things I’ve been working on lately, it’s been really dark again and we don’t have many hours of daylight anyway at this time of year. Both of these pieces were made using natural wools and bamboo fibres as embellishment. This first piece has a base made with a variety of brown and grey scoured wools and natural wool tops that I carded into a batt. On top of that are twists of grey merino with white bamboo top. When it was almost felted, I cut and rolled and folded, then fulled to get the texture and effect I wanted.

This next piece was made with brown Finnish wool for the base, twists of dark brown Corriedale and black bamboo were positioned on top. This was also folded and fulled to get the shape I wanted.

I’ve been given the chance to do my first craft fair in a couple of weeks. I was wondering if anyone has any advice or tips for doing fairs?

Recent Things

November 3, 2013 zedster66 Comments 17 comments

I made some mixed white wool batts on my drum carder recently. I like to use different wool breeds together because they felt differently to each other so you get interesting results and it’s different every time. I made 3 batts altogether and used Lincoln, 23 mic Merino, 18 mic Merino, Norwegian, Texel, Cheviot, Devon, Teeswater and Shetland wool tops. I also added in some carded mixed lambswool and Falkland fleece for texture, and Border Leicester, Mohair curls, Bluefaced Leicester, Wensleydale, and Alpaca for crimp and curl. I also added some silk for extra shine.

I thought I’d use the batts as the inspiration to put together another wool and fibre pack, using white/natural as the theme. I added some cotton scrim and some of the ‘luxury’ embellishment fibres I have: Bamboo staple fibre, Egyptian cotton top, Ingeo, Banana, Ramie, Flax and Milk protein fibre. And also some silk fibres: silk threads and throwster’s waste, silk carrier rods (don’t they look so ugly before they’re soaked and separated?!) and one of my favourites, silk noil. I love the way it felts, but I also love the way it smells and sounds as it’s separated and stretched out 🙂

I went to Abakhan on Wednesday for some supplies (they were out of delrin clips!) and I couldn’t resist getting some gorgeous georgette fabric in a few designs. This is one of them:

I also couldn’t resist the braiding, so got 3 designs:

I hadn’t had chance to do much over the last few weeks so I decided to make time on Friday and laid out and felted a nuno felt piece with one of the new fabrics I bought. I knew I should have added some wool around the edges of the fabric, but I laid it out upside down, with the fabric on the bottom and knew I’d mess up if I tried to flip it 🙂

I picked colours from the fabric to make a muti coloured patchwork back:

It textured really nicely:

Notebook Covers

August 25, 2013 zedster66 Comments 13 comments

This first notebook cover that I finished this week took ages to make. My temperamental sewing machine keeps refusing to catch the bobbin thread with the needle. Occasionally I can force it to, then it runs for a while, then I go to turn the piece I’m working on and realise it was just making sewing noises and everything I thought I’d just sewn is loose 🙁 I kept going back to this until it was finished, then put the machine away so it can’t annoy me anymore. I had a collection of felt pieces I’d made with natural coloured wools and plant fibres. None of them were big enough for notebook covers and either too thick or too thin for coin purses, so I thought I’d make a few natural coloured collage notebook covers. Or just one as it turned out. I used some unbleached calico as the backing fabric to sew the pieces onto. I really like the way this turned out. This is the front:

Some of the grey pieces are from a piece of felt I made for Karen’s Weather Challenge, using grey Gotland Locks for rolling clouds. This is the back:

I machine stitched the top edges together, then finished off the edges and the flaps with some grey/brown thread I spun myself. It was quite chunky for a thinnish thread, but I like the way it looks.

This next notebook cover is probably the nicest one I’ve ever made. I used a piece of nuno felt that I made for my Beyond Nuno book. It has some gorgeous flowery blue synthetic fabric nuno felted onto merino tops. I made a little tie for the front from an off-cut of the nuno felt. I cut a strip about 8-10mm wide and wet it with soapy water and rolled between my palms until it formed a cord. I used a spring toggle as the fastener. This is the front:

This is the back:

I really love the colours and the way the fabric rippled so nicely.

SuperMacro texture:

I’m getting better at letting things go and listing them on etsy, but if this doesn’t sell before the listing expires, I’m keeping it!

Cat Cave

July 30, 2013 shepherdessann 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,

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.

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.

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/

Latest Projects

March 24, 2013 zedster66 Comments 24 comments

I decided to take the plunge and open an Etsy shop. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean I’m going to start making sticks with feathers and crystals stuck to them or adding ironic moustaches to all my notebooks 😉 Lyn was telling me that etsy have started doing instant downloads, but it appears to be in the trial stage at the moment. I added a digital download to my shop and applied to join their ‘team’ in the hope I can try it too, but I’m still waiting to hear.

I don’t have much in there at the moment, mostly some silk fibre packs and a felted notebook cover. But on Friday I was having a rummage through my fabric and with 3 large boxes and 5 shoe boxes open and contents all over, I thought it might be nice to put together a fabric sample pack of the different fabrics I used in my e-book. How long could it take? About 20 minutes or so? Ha! 2 hours later I was still cutting and measuring, taking photos, making piles on the floor, standing on the tape measure and almost slicing my neck open, getting sidetracked with a pile of fabric perfect for this, that or the other! And then I had to edit the photos and do the listing. I don’t know how people find the time! Of course, I’m pretty sure my fabric supply is dangerously low now, so I’ll probably have to re-stock 🙂

Yesterday I found a bit of time to go through my box of felt pieces to make things with. I had quite a large piece I’d made with black merino and strips of coloured cotton gauze. The back was blues and greens with silk embellishments. I thought it’d make a nice purse or wallet, with two sections. I’ve almost finished it, I just need to add the button and button hole.

Trying a button:

The back:

I still had quite a big piece of the felt left, so I cut the pieces out for another one:

The other project I found time for was sewing a notebook cover. I made a piece of nuno felt a while back from a patterned pink, green and blue silk scarf. I had always intended to make a notebook cover out of it but really liked it and didn’t want to cut it up! I think time has made it a little easier though 🙂

The texture is really nice:

I had a few ideas for making things with some of the natural white felt pieces I have spare. I started to cut them up, but you’ll have to wait and see what I make from these 🙂

Have you had time for making anything lately or is everyone battling the weather, it seems like half of us are under feet of snow. I’m glad it’s cooled off a bit down under though, only about 32C now in Victoria, Kaz has probably got her woolly jumpers out and the fire on 😉

Threads and Yarns

March 12, 2013 zedster66 Comments 20 comments

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.

I pulled off some of the tops from each shade.

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

I added some of each fibre to the Shetland tops.

Then I blended them by hand.

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

I 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.

Then 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.

Do 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.

Remaking my Boots

March 2, 2013 shepherdessann Comments 7 comments

If you remember I am taking a felt boot class. http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2013/02/12/felt-boots-progress/

The boots looked pretty good when done but I wasn’t happy. I kept putting of finishing them and so I sat down and had a good look at them to see what I didn’t like. Well, the way the resist is made just didn’t work. I ended up with the extra to account for your calf in the front not the back. So when you put them on you end up with a big fold in the back of the ankle.

Also because you make the tongue first and then wrap it around the front of the resist it gets felted in at an angle and that doesn’t change as you felt so when you pull the tongue up along the front of your leg you get a big fold that would be uncomfortable. Her boots look fine and I haven’t seen any questions or complaints on the class blog so maybe if you don’t have big calves you don’t have this problem.

I decided to make another pair. I cut the resist at the ankle and turned it around. I also added a little more in the depth of the foot. I think I would rather trim it than only just have the fit.