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Ruffle Scarves and Slippers

Ruffle Scarves and Slippers

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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.

ruffle scarf shrinkage

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.

ruffle scarves ruffle scarves rolled up

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.

Fynn boots redy for washer Fynn boots finnished

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

my slippers ready to felt my slippers

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.

falling leaves Fynn likes them.

Fynn in the leaves

 

 

Felting, Weaving and Teaching

Felting, Weaving and Teaching

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I had a fairly productive week I made 4 cup cozies.  They need their buttons and elastic loops but I should get that done this week. I need to sort out if they are narrow enough to go through the handle on a coffee mug. If they don’t fit I will make them for travel mugs without handles.

cup cozies

Here are some close up pictures. The top two have throwsters silk waste. The bottom left is a silk scarf and the right is cotton cheesecloth.

cozies close up

I also got the inklette loom warped to make a strap.

incle loom

The weaving is not great but it is getting better as I go.

ingle weaving

Lastly I had t very nice ladies to may studio to learn to make nuno felt scarves. As usual I was busy with the students and forgot to take pictures until the end.

nuno finished scarves nuno scarves close up

 

New Nuno

New Nuno

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I blended some fine 18.5 micron Merino recently to make a scarf for my Dad for Christmas. I used what was left of a blue/purple/green blend I’d made for another scarf, and ran it through the drum carder with more green. This is one of the batts:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI had to go into town on Wednesday, so I wanted to try out a scarf I’d bought from a shop there when I last went, so I could see if it was worth getting more, since they were only £1 each. The batts I made for my Dad’s scarf were the perfect colour so I ‘borrowed’ some of them to try a piece out:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt’s probably just over a third of the size of a full scarf, or a full sized small collar:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt made a really nice texture, which is a shame because the shop had shut down recently 🙁

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd, of course, a supermacro:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThose of you who go on the forum will have seen this piece, it’s a sample I made using some georgette fabric I got from Abakhan last time:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI knew from other similar fabrics I’ve used that it would only attach loosely, the weave isn’t particularly open, and one part of the bottom edge didn’t attach at all. Even though I was fairly certain it would felt like it did, I like to just try a sample on top without wisps etc at first to get a good idea of how it felts, sometimes fabrics like this attach well around the edge if they are quite frayed.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI haven’t decided what I’ll use it for yet, but I did make it big enough to make a coin/zipper purse out of, I thought that might look nice.

Happy Birthday Giveaway #2

Happy Birthday Giveaway #2

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Today it’s my turn to offer a free giveaway to celebrate our blogs 3rd Birthday.

I  am giving  away one of my Workshop in a Bag Kits.  A Nuno Felt Bracelet Kit. It’s a great way to learn  how to make nuno felt without having to have a large space or a big time commitment.

 

cover shot 3

Kit contains: detailed instructions with lots of pictures, template, wool, hand dyed silk, rolling mat, and plastic.

There will be some choice as to the colour of the silk and the wool.

All you have to do is leave a comment below to be entered. It doesn’t matter where you live. I will mail it to you.  I need to be able to contact you to get your snail mail address so anonymous comments won’t work. I will be doing a random draw on November 25th and announcing it on the 26th

Good luck everyone!

 

Recent Work

Recent Work

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I mentioned recently that I’m doing a Craft Fair soon. It’s this coming Sunday at Victoria Baths on Hathersage Road in Manchester. They also do guided tours that day, so if you’re interested, have a look at their website.
In my post last time, I showed a faintly plaid felt piece which I’d started to make into a diary cover. Here is the finished cover:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI also mentioned a piece of silk I got for £3 a metre. I did manage to use it on a felt piece, but I haven’t made it into a cover yet. It looked a bit nicer and brighter just before the final fulling, but I wanted to make sure it would stand up to years of handling:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI don’t know if you remember a couple of pictures I posted as part of the Jackson Pollock challenge from a bag I was working on, well, I never did get around to finishing the bag, and when I saw it recently, I thought I could cut it up and turn it into a nice sturdy diary cover. So, I did 🙂  This is the front:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd, this is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI always forget just how long it takes to do these covers! Also, because I didn’t have any coloured threads which I thought would be just right, I ‘blended’ my own. I took a strand each of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet embroidery floss and made a 6 strand rainbow. I had to do that for each part I stitched, and I was starting to regret it by the end 🙂

One of the things I wondered after the last fair was whether it was obvious that my stuff was actually handmade felt made from real wool. A lot of my stuff is well felted or nuno felt, so to anyone who doesn’t know felt, it could just be commercial fabric I’ve bought. So I thought I would make some obviously wool natural pieces for book covers. They are made from lots of different breeds of wool and embellished with locks, some mohair boucle from Marilyn, some silk noil, and viscose and bamboo. This one has the most added embellishments:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI did actually use the same size template for these pieces, but with all the different wools and embellishments there was different shrinkage. For this piece, I tried to stick to wools which were more similar: Merino, Bluefaced Leicester, Finn and Corriedale, and there are less embellishments:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIf I get chance before the fair, I’ll upload the finished covers to ipernity or the forum.

Busy Making Felting Kits

Busy Making Felting Kits

Comments 17 comments

I have not done much felting lately. Instead I have been working on a Nuno Felt Bracelet Kit. Sounds simple enough. I wrote up the instructions over a few days, going back over everything and adding in more and more detail, making thing more clear. That was the easy part. Next I had to take pictures. I don’t have any way of taking pictures of myself felting by myself so I enlisted my son to do the picture taking. He was very patient as I made a bracelet and took notes on my instructions of things I needed to change and add. It this point I am thinking well that was not so bad.

blurry writting

Next was picking out and  editing the pictures. I do not know how people do photo editing for a living. It takes for ever and it is booooring. I did eventually get that all done so it was time to send it off to the spelling and grammar police. Now normally I am not a big fan of the spelling and grammar police as I am on of the top ten worst spellers in the world. However when you want to sell something to the public it really should be spelled correctly so you don’t look too bad. Than another friend locked my instructions and took all the meta data off my pictures. I had no idea how to do that. Thank heavens for friends.

IMG_1263

 

 

Next I think I would like to get the instructions printed. I nearly fainted when I saw the price of colour copies. It was decided that a CD would work very well and cost much less. So next was learning how to burn CDs. It’s not hard but it was time consuming. Good thing there was some good TV to watch while I did that.

CDs

 

Yesterday I spent the day assembling kits. That took way longer than I thought. I will never do well in a sweatshop, I am much to slow.  In the end I have lots of kits ready for my next show (Twist http://www.festivaltwist.org/en/ ) I am sure I will not sell them all as I made up 50 but they will be ready for other shows later in the year.

Here is what the finished kit looks like:

kit front kit back

 

 

 

 

 

Felting Along

Felting Along

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I am felting along. I do not have anything much to show for it yet but I am plugging away at several things.

I am almost finished the instructions for a nuno felt bracelet kit I plan on selling. I have all the instructions for the felting done but still need to do the finishing, adding buttons and button holes. It takes so much longer to do than you think it will.

Pull the wool roll

check fit again

I have been working on finishing some other bracelets. This is the one I am working on at the moment.

bracelet in progress

I have been spinning on a new drop spindle made by my friend Judy.

spindle 2

Have you been tackling big jobs or small ones so far this summer?

 

 

 

 

Distaff Day

Distaff Day

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Every year on of the local guilds hosts a day of fun short workshops, lunch and fun.

breakfast snacks

 

There are vendors for adding to your stash

vendor 1 vendor 2 vendor 3

In the morning I took a hookers necklace class. This is done by stitching the little wool strips and beads onto a stretchy string.  the necklace are scratchy but would be fine on winter over clothing. I think I may do one with some felt off cuts for a softer necklace.  Mine is second from the left.

hookers necklases

In the afternoon I taught a nuno felt bracelet. I had 10 people in the class and they seemed to really enjoy themselves. They will have to put buttons on them themselves. One lady left hers a little longer and is planning to use cufflinks to hold it closed.

nuno bracelets

I will show you the pictures I have of some of the other workshops  next time.

Around the Felting Studio and Farm this Week

Around the Felting Studio and Farm this Week

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Not a lot of felting itself going on this week but I have been busy. Like everyone else I never have enough storage space in my studio so I painted up all the peices and hubby and son put a new shelving unit together for me. I started to put sort and put things on it already but more needs to be done.

shelf

I am teaching at a multi guild gathering today. We call it Distaff day and for a small fee you get two 2 hour classes, lunch, vendors and lots of chatting with like minded people. I am teaching nuno felt bracelets and taking hookers necklace. I will have pictures of the day in a later post.

stuff for class

I washed some old fleeces I found stashed away and salvaged a small amount of curls I will cut from the  matted back. I don’t know where I got these but they would have been free. They don’t look bad in the pictures but they were in rough shape.

washed wool

I received a raw flees I ordered for a hat project that you will get to see when it’s done.  I was down to picking between 2 fleeces and in the end picked this one because I liked the sheep’s name. The fleece is very curly. I love the smell of raw wool.

wiki fleece

Lastly around the farm: the chickens and turkeys arrived. The Black chickens are egg layers and the yellows are meat birds.

chickens 2 chickens 1

The turkeys are at the ugly stage

turkeys 2

Cheese cloth Nuno Felt Experiment.

Cheese cloth Nuno Felt Experiment.

Comments 13 comments

A while back Ruth got some free samples of some cheese cloth  or cotton gauze from Cheese Cloth Fabric.com. She dyed some and sent me some samples. I also had a more open weave cheese cloth that I will use so you can see the difference. I thought if I am going to use my time I should make something that will be salable in the end so decided to make bracelets or cuffs so I could easily compare the cottons.

gauze on black
gauze on black
gauze on white
gauze on white

The pink on the left is the sample sent to Ruth and the purple on the right is the gauze I got at a place called Lens Mill  http://www.lensmill.com/ in Guelph Ontario. You can see the purple is a much more open weave.

first two samples first two samples wool on

Ruth sent to colour samples. Here is before and after adding the wool.

purple gauze ready to felt purple gauze 2 ready to felt

I did one sample of the purple flat and one scrunched up. You can see my template marks behind the right one.

purple gauze finished purple gauze 2 finnished close

I like the way both these tuned out. they are very different than the tighter weave cotton.

green gause finished close orange finnished orange 2 finnished

I did a scrunched up pink one for comparison. I think I like the scrunched up ones the best. I may add some beads in to folds.  They will be for sale later in the summer once I get some buttons and button holes done.