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A felting Weekend

A felting Weekend

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Last week end a friend Dianne Lemire and I went down to our friends Maureen Harding’s place for a felters weekend. Another friend Susan came on Friday to felt with us. It is so much fun to spend a week end with other people that love to felt.

I wanted to make a new little purse to use at shows. First I did a black one with a nice blue silk inside and a pocket. For the design on the flap I balled up some peices of orange silk and wound them up with thread to keep them in a ball.

silk balls on bag

I used a piece of black prefelt to cover them.  Then some silk roving to make them look more like a swirl. I used a scrap of commercial prefelt but you could make a piece of your own. Once it was dry I cut the tops off the raised  peices to reveal the bright colour underneath.

black bag finnished

This is the inside with the pocket and you can see I added an orange nuno swirl that is hidden by the front flap.

black bag finnished inside

Black is great but I decided I needed something brighter as well so I went with a multi coloured roving in orange.

orange bag layout

I added a pocket to this one too. Here you can see I forgot to add soap to the water and  it sits on the wool in beads. I think its a cool picture.

water on bag pocket

I used the flat glass “marbles” that they sell for decorating instead of silk balls this time. You can really see the out line of the marbles on the inside of the flap

orange bag inside orange bag finished uncut

I made a long snake to use as a strap. It is long enough to wrap around my waist or use as a shoulder bad depending on what I am wearing. I will put some grommets in the ends and 2 on the back to thread the rope through.

orange bag with snake  The holes I cut to reveal the marbles are not very big. I think I will probably enlarge them.  I will post a picture when the grommets are in and the holes are bigger.

I will show you more form our felting weekend in my next post.

Meet the Supplier: Dreamspin Fibres

Meet the Supplier: Dreamspin Fibres

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.

m silly


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

store room

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.

dreamspin prefelt


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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New Year, Old Stuff

New Year, Old Stuff

Comments 17 comments

I have one more piece that I made just before Christmas that I haven’t done anything with yet. I planned it so that the red to purple rainbow stripes in the centre would fit around an A5 notebook, and the stripes at the ends would be the flaps inside. But it didn’t shrink enough for that. And isn’t quite long enough to fit on an A5 ring-binder.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis is the back side of it

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAfter the craft fair I made a few more camera cases, it was nice to sit and sew without any pressure of having to get it done by a certain time. These are from a grey merino and grey/pink synthetic fabric nuno piece I made a while ago. Sorry about the odd photos, there’s a weird blue light here today.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThese are slightly bigger and made from burgundy merino and a kind of tulle synthetic fabric nuno.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI haven’t had chance to do much at all lately, I forgot I’d have to file my tax returns soon, so have been frantically listing, categorising and printing all week. I hope I remember how to do it 🙂
You might remember a post from last year about expanding the felting and fiber community. I just wanted to remind everyone that we are still interested in having guest posts, articles, features etc if anyone would like to contribute to the site? If you’d like an idea of some of the posts others have contributed, hover over  ‘Community’ on the menu bar and you will see the various categories. It doesn’t have to be original, it can be something you’ve used on your own site, as long as it is about felt, fabric, wool or fibres or anything related like threads, tools, farming, production, supplies, selling etc we’d love to include it 🙂  Use the Contact Form at the top or PM us on the forum.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI thought I’d add a supermacro of locks, just because 🙂

Nuno and Bamboo

Nuno and Bamboo

Comments 9 comments

I found time last week to make a notebook cover from the bright flowery nuno piece I recently made. The finished felt piece turned out bigger than I’d expected and I did play with the idea of making a passport style shoulder bag. Maybe if I’d had a nice button or some Delrin clips I would have, but in the end I thought a book cover would look nice. This is the front:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is the back:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI usually leave the natural felt edges on the inside front flap, but when I worked out the best position of the felt for the cover, it ended up on the inside back :

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASo the ‘neat’ cut edge is on the inside of the front.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve been mostly working on some ideas using natural wools and fibres recently. As much as I like nuno and brightly coloured Merino, the natural shades of wools and fibres and the different textures and properties of the wools and fibres and how they work together is a bit of an obsession for me 🙂 I made a few pieces with different bamboo fibres this week. Some were just samples as I worked out the crinkles of ideas and played with the fibres to get the look I want. This is a sample piece I made using black bamboo blended with black merino:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis piece worked out just how I imagined and wanted it. It’s 18.5 mic Merino with bamboo staple fibre for subtle shiny texture:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhat have you been working on lately?

Refelting and Redying

Refelting and Redying

Comments 10 comments

I had a scarf and a wrap that where not selling and well where really not that great looking. Both had to much open space. The green one in particular. They were also not great colours. The pinky one is very coral and the wool was faded looking even though it was just the way it dyed. You can see the original wool on the top half of the picture it is much paler than the new dark wool on the bottom.

green scarf before pink scarf before

Originally the green one just had the  felt squares so I flipped it over and added  long winding strips in the same colour and with the same yarn.  Now there is texture and colour on both sides. On the pinky one I flipped it over and added a wiggly line between the ones that where already on the other side.

I don’t like the silk colour on the green one and I don’t like the silk or pale wool on the pinky one. They had to be redyed.  The pink one went into a pumpkin spice acid dye bath.

orange scarf in dye

the green one I didn’t want the wool to change colour so I  used MX dye. I soaked the scarf in water and PH up (soda ash) and then into  a darker green dye bath.  green scarf in the dye

This is the finished product.

orange scarf after dye green scarf after dye

The pinky one is a nice rich deep orange now and the green is more of an olive shade now that goes better with the wool.

When I took the orange one out of the dye bath there was still dye in the water so I put a piece of silk and some washed but not carded wool into the bath and this is what I got out.

orange exhaust bath dry orange exhaust bath scarf dry

The wool and the silk were in the dye bath at the same time and for the same length of time. Silk really sucks up the dye, fast.

A Fingerless Mitt Experiment

A Fingerless Mitt Experiment

Comments 15 comments

Christmas is coming so I am still working on fingerless mitts for my guild sale the first weekend in November. One of my scarves made the poster.

OVWSGposter2012-3-400

I decided to try an experiment with a couple of pairs of Mitts. I wanted to make long cuts to reveal another colour.  I wrapped some shrink tubing and some regular tubing like you might use in a fish tank in some wool. I gave it a quick felt to get the wool tight around the tube. I thought this might be the best way to keep the fibers where I wanted them. I placed them between the layers of the mitts.

tubes collage

It worked really well.  After I cut the felt and took the tubes out I steamed them and opened up the slits. They are purple and pink and pink and purple but the cameras seems to think the purple is blue. I think it is because the wool of the table is so yellow.

purple and pink pink and purple

This is what they look like on. Sorry the pictures are bad I had to take it on my own arm.

purple and pink on pink and purple on

They turned out really well . I think I could have used less wool around the inclusions. I think I might felt them more next time too.

the other thing I did recently was make a matching set of hat and mitts. I added some silk to both, scrunching it  up to make it very textured. One small part didn’t stick down properly on the hat and will need a couple of stitches.

gray hat and mitts

I have more hats on the go and need to do some scarves before the sale but I think things are going well so far. Have you tried anything new recently?

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?

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.

Finished Cuffs

Finished Cuffs

Comments 15 comments

This week has been a snatch a little felting here and there week. The cuffs dried out twice before they where ready to have the marbles added.

I use elastics for doing braids in horse manes and tales to put the marbles into the felt.

cuffs with marbles 1 cuffs with marbles 2

After they are dry its time to cut the tops off and pop out the marbles.

cuffs with marbles 3cuffs finished 2

 
After I cut the marbles out of this one with the silk on the back it didn’t look right. You cant see the silk inside.

cuffs finished

So I cut the blobs down farther to open them up more and now you can see the silk

cuffs finished 4

Here are all three finished.

cuffs finished 3

They are quit big.

cuffs on 1 cuffs on 2

I pulled the corners on one side of each end to make it cover a lot of area, mostly to see what it would look like. I like it.

 

 

 

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.