nuno felt – Page 4 – Felting and Fiber Studio

I’ve Definitely Been Challenged!

September 19, 2017 ruthlane Comments 11 comments

I have written earlier about the Third Quarter Challenge which is based on the Japanese Edo period. Once to show you the design I developed to use and the other to show you the felt I created. Then I showed you the disaster that included stitching and cutting out of the resist. I wasn’t happy with the results so I decided to start over. What could go wrong?

I decided that I would make a silk screen with matte vinyl fuse. Then I could silk screen the design on to the previously dyed silk and then nuno felt the design. (If you’re interested in learning how to make this type of silk screen, it is included in my online class Experimental Silk Screening.) At our recent art retreat, I made up some really dark violet thickened dye and screened it over the silk. It looked perfect. I used Procion dye and soda ash to set it. Then, once home I washed it out in preparation for felting it.

And every single bit of dye disappeared! Nothing was left at all. Arghh! I have since decided it was due to the fact that this is very thin silk and has been previously dyed and it just wasn’t going to take any more dye. Sigh.

I have to tell you that I was discouraged. I had to go to my Art & Design class I really didn’t have time for this setback. But if nothing else, I have perseverance (AKA stubbornness). So one more try.

I decided I would just screen print with acrylic paint mixed with screen printing medium. So that is what I did. The paint once dry wouldn’t disappear with application of water. So with a little bit of a different color, more maroon this time, I screened the silk.

I laid out some pink Merino that Karen from Big Sky Fiberarts gave me a while ago. I made it fairly thick because I didn’t want a lot of shrinkage and especially with nuno felting, less wool equals more shrinkage and distortion of the silk.

So here’s the wool layout with the silk on top. I proceeded with felting and the design finally did what I wanted it to do. It didn’t disappear and it pretty much kept it’s shape.

Here’s a poor photo of the piece after felting while still wet.

I think if I never saw this design again, I wouldn’t mind. To say the least, this was quite a challenge. I am not sure what I am going to do with this piece of felt yet but for now, I’m just happy it’s finished. I also have found it interesting that many people think this is a Celtic design. I guess that many ancient designs have a similar feel but this one is based on the Japanese Edo period. And I finished before the end of the third quarter, I think it’s a miracle!

Small Nuno Pieces

July 29, 2017 zedster66 Comments 16 comments

I thought some of the recent scarves I’ve bought might make nice panels for the front of bags. I usually do a few samples when I get new fabrics, see how they felt at various sizes with different thicknesses of wool. This first piece attached ‘better’ at this size than it had when I tried a narrower strip. I think it’s viscose:

It has a nice texture:

These next 4 pieces are all silk. I wasn’t sure which colour of Merino to use with this, it was a toss up between ‘Mink’ and ‘Catkin’–a pale yellow. On its own it looks beige, so I chose ‘Mink’ , but now it looks more cream in colour so I might try a sample with the pale yellow 🙂

This was a difficult one to colour match too. I wasn’t sure whether to go for green or pinky purple. I decided on green, I didn’t have quite the right shade, but got as close as possible:

I used another piece from the same scarf, it might have been a panel from the bottom of the previous sample, this part definitely seemed like it’d be better with a pinky/purple shade. I chose the closest light purple I had, ‘Orchid’ I think, and used a bright pink underneath:

It’s funny how something looks a certain colour until you match it with something, then you see different colours more. This looked very pink, so I used a Salmon base, after felting, the beige seems very similar to the first piece and the lilac/pink/purples look similar to the previous piece. Maybe they’d work together in strips?

This is one of my favourite pieces. I think the scarf I tore it from is Polyester. This attached better than a narrower sample I tried too, it turned out much better than I thought. I tried to match the colours of Merino to the colours of the stripes on the scarf so they werent dulled by migration:

It has a really nice texture too:

Have you bought or tried out any new fabrics lately?

Latest Nuno and Bookcover

July 13, 2017 zedster66 Comments 12 comments

I made the last of my nuno strip pieces into panels for a bag. It was this yellow piece:

I used various types of fabric–cotton, viscose, silk, suspected silk, so got various textures:

I liked these two strips next to each other, they showed the very different way felting/shrinkage affected them:

I used some of the spare offcuts from the orange piece to make up the panels:

I made the Green felt which I piled with BFL locks into a notebook/diary cover. The pictures look a bit weird because I had a small patch of desk out of the sunlight when I was taking photos, but it must have been shadier at one end so, to me, they look upside down!

Here’s the other side:

This is the inside without the book:

And this is the outside without the book:

I’ve finally got the buttons and buttonholes on nearly all the purses from a few weeks ago, so hopefully, I’ll have those to show next time 🙂

Blues and Greens

June 27, 2017 zedster66 Comments 12 comments

These are the blue and green nuno pieces I made using fabric strips a few weeks ago. I tried to include a wide range of colours as well as various fabrics.
This one was a mix of blue, purple, green and turquoise:

The two viscose pieces either side of this silk chiffon have great ripples, the chiffon just sunk in. It’s one of my favourite fabrics, from a dress I got at a charity shop and didn’t realise was silk until I used it and saw how it sunk in, and went back to search for the label.

I’ve noticed that some fabrics attach better if they are in the middle or aren’t too close to the edge. I’ll try a sample with just this thick blue scarf piece at the end, and see if it attaches better not so close to the edge.

All the fabrics I used on this piece were silk or strongly suspected of being silk:

It looks much better close up, and on an angle – the lighter pieces seem to reflect light a lot:

You can see the textures better too:

I think I made the strips a bit too long on the green piece, a few of these didn’t attach well along the edge, even though the rest of the pieces did. I usually try to make sure I work on edges, so I don’t know why it happens sometimes:

Slightly closer:

I did think I’d probably make one mostly blue bag and one mostly green, but once the strips were cut up and moved around to see which others they looked best with, it didn’t work out like that! Also, being conscious of how bags wear more on the back, picking pieces to work best there also influenced the final outcome. These are the two panels I made for my next bag:

I have to remember to take photos of it sewn up for next time!

Still Sewing

June 11, 2017 zedster66 Comments 20 comments

Well, my sewing stuff – and the mess – is still out! I realised I was running out of offcuts, so decided to make some more. I suppose technically they’re not offcuts if I make them with the intention of cutting into strips, but you know what I mean 🙂 I made a few different coloured nuno felt pieces:

I loved the variety of textures I got from using different fabrics on the orange piece:

The red piece was made with all silk pieces:

This is a corner of the red piece with sunlight on it:

I think this is my favourite close up, from the yellow piece I made, and a strip from a viscose scarf:

Before I got too attached to the pieces, I cut them all up into strips:

I made a mistake with some of them, because some pieces weren’t very wide. I should have left them ‘whole’ instead of cutting the strip in half like I did the others. I started with the red and orange strips, and matched up some pieces, it turned out some of the purple strips worked well too so I used some of them. I made them into a passport style shoulder bag. I made this side as the front:

I made the back to match, but different enough that it can be reversed for a different look:

It’s not very easy to see, but I finished the bottom of the strap off with some wooden beads.

Nuno Felt Scarf Class

May 2, 2017 Shepherdessann Comments 14 comments

A few weeks ago I taught a nuno felt scarf class. As usual I had great students and we had a lot of fun.

I have grouped the 4 scarves into galleries so you can see the progressions.

These first 2 the students opted to leave a lot of the silk showing. This style always floats nicely when finished. The silk sort of puffs up when it is caught by the air.

The next 2 used more wool. This first one reminds me of water and sailing.

This last one has the most wool. When talking about design I was talking about how people tend to work along the scarf like a landscape forgetting that the ends will hand down and if you want your flowers the right way up you need to make them the other direction. I think this one turned out especial well.

All in all I think they all turned out fantastic. People know what they are coming to do but they are always so surprised and pleased when it actually works. It is one of the best parts of teaching.

Bright Nuno Pieces

March 1, 2017 zedster66 Comments 16 comments

Some slightly more ‘conventional’ nuno felt this week. Well, conventional to me anyway 🙂 I made a piece similar to this first one a while ago and it was really popular and sold, so I thought I’d make another one:

I’m thinking that next time I make something which is ‘double sided’, I’m going to flip the layout over when I’ve finished the first layer, because the top always looks better than the underneath. It looks alright, but was definitely better on the side I worked on:

I love the shiny ripples of silk nuno:

I used a strip torn from a viscose scarf on another piece I made:

I think you can see the ripples a bit better on an angle:

The ripples were so uniform and neat, I couldn’t decide which close up to use, so I’m posting 3 🙂

Organza and Soap

February 21, 2017 zedster66 Comments 24 comments

I have a ‘thing’ for organza. I know, I have a ‘thing’ for all fabrics, but there’s something about organza I just can’t resist. Maybe it’s the two-tone colours of some, and also how they can be very different to each other while being similar. So, I thought I’d make a very textured nuno with various organzas. Like the other pieces I’ve made recently, I used 4 very fine layers of Merino. This is the whole piece:

Looking at the back, you can see how textured this is too:

Looking on an angle shows the many different textures:

It’s interesting how differently the various types rippled, probably due to how much Merino and how it was laid as well as the different finishes of the fabrics. The yellow piece, folded in columns:

The Purple on the right edge (and the red/yellow next to it) had more of a scrunched texture.

In this photo you can see the migration, and the way these organzas had a crumpled texture:

I made some felted soaps last week. They’re not perfect, but I’m getting better at it! I find natural wools on handmade soap works better for me, but people do love the bright, colourful ones!

White Nuno Texture

February 13, 2017 zedster66 Comments 10 comments

I took some close up photos of the white textured nuno piece I showed last week. I used a few different types of cotton fabrics: some cotton gauze-single pieces and folded over, some scrim, cheesecloth, some natural muslin, somecotton fabric from an old sack which was thicker than muslin, but thinner than calico (any ideas?). Here are close ups of the cotton parts:

I used some synthetic chiffon, I liked these ripples:

And even closer:

I also used some silk crepe:

I used similar fabrics on a larger piece, and also used some bleached Muslin (very white pieces) and a scrap of crumpled habotai silk:

You can see the textures better on an angle:

I really like the extreme textures and wonder what other single colours would look good.

More nuno felt class.

December 17, 2016 Shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

I taught nuno felt scarves again on Sunday. I wasn’t as good with taking pictures but I will show you what I have.

This lady Had to leave early. She was going to finish at home. I am hoping to get her to send me a picture of it finished and I will insert it if when does.

I didn’t get one of this one finished either

I can’t remember if she added more or not. She had to leave before she finished but she said she will send me pictures today. I will insert them when she does.