nuno texture – Felting and Fiber Studio

2nd Quarter Challenge Piece Finished

May 5, 2018 zedster66 Comments 14 comments

I finished off the natural vessel I showed felted, but not shaped or fulled, a couple of weeks ago:

It’s made with various wools, I took a range of naturals to the well being centre and I think the first two (inside) layers are Portuguese Merino from a batt, and the next two are brown Finnish. I took lots of locks in too, mostly Swedish breeds/crossbreeds from Zara in lots of shades, but I might have used a few BFL locks too:

If you saw my post last week, you might be interested to know how the thing which looked a bit like a pizza base turned out. This is my entry for Ann’s 2nd Quarter Challenge, which is “using fabric as a surface design instead of a base”, but Ann then added “As an extra challenge to you it can’t be a sample and it can’t be a book cover” 🙂 Luckily, I’d already had an idea which would fit the challenge, since we’d been doing ‘extreme nuno’ and vessels at the well being centre, I’d planned to combine the two at some point, and Ann’ challenge gave me the push to do it.

I cut out a template, sort of bowl shaped, but not for any reason, I just wanted something big and not square. Then I started adding strips of white fabrics to it: synthetic chiffon, muslin, scrim and cotton gauze. I then added fine layers of Rambouillet. The photo I showed last week was where I’d wet it all down and had started to felt it. This photo is of the piece felted, you can see the resist starting to curl from the shrinkage:

As soon as I started to full it on the bubble-wrap it really puffed up!

I removed the resist and carried on fulling, I turned it the right side out, and realised I’d accidentally made a felted cow stomach!

Close up:

I did a bit more fulling and tried it on a balloon to shape and removed it see if it was fulled enough:

It wasn’t, so I did a bit more fulling, , this isn’t the best photo, but you can see the shrinkage, it started out the full height of the netting:

I rinsed it and left on a balloon to shape and dry. This is how it looked finished:

Another side:

This is some nice ruffley chiffon on the bottom, between some Cotton Gauze and cotton scrim:

The chiffon ruffles up so nicely:

This is an area where I overlapped different fabrics:

And, since the thought behind the idea was that it’d make an interesting lampshade, here it is on a lightbulb (btw, if you tell someone to look at how cool something looks on a lightbulb, warn them when you’re going to take it off, apparently some of us forget and ‘blind people for hours’!)

Close up:

Different angle:

So, did I fulfill the criteria, Ann? 🙂

3 New Things

February 22, 2018 zedster66 Comments 17 comments

I chose a few felt pieces to make things from recently. One was a piece I made about 3 and a half years ago, it was my first attempt at a plaid-inspired piece:

I thought I could improve it by adding some machine stitching, so I just added a few straight lines and some zig-zg stitches. A couple of strips looked too plain so I added some offcut strips, then sewed it up into a book cover:

The strap is removable, this is the front:

This is the back:

And, opened out without a book inside:

The other 2 pieces were texturey nuno pieces. They were planned to be the right size for coin purses. I was going to make them my usual way, of cutting out and blanket stitching, but I thought the first piece was a bit too ‘grungey’ for neat stitching:

And when I got the other piece to cut up I thought the same thing:

So, instead I just cut one piece for the inside pocket, and tried to keep the natural edges, just folded and stitched. This is the ‘antiquey’ looking one:

I tried a button, but I think it’s too new:

Inside:

The bluey green nuno I made this from is one of my favourite pieces that I’ve made. It made a nice purse too:

Open:

There are so many colours and textures:

Sometimes it seems like a cycle of just making lots of felt, then making lots of things from felt!

Colourful Nuno

October 17, 2017 zedster66 Comments 18 comments

A while ago, I made a few pieces of orange felt to get the right one for my friend who wanted me to make a purse. It took a while, but I did finish the purse. Here is the front:

And the back:

Inside:

I made a couple of nuno felt pieces recently with plans to make them into things. I left the tassels hanging over the edge because I thought it’d look good made into a bag:

I like these scarves, luckily other people don’t seem to anymore so I’ve found quite a few at charity shops:

Great texture:

I made a patchy textured piece:

I like the combination of textures:

I really like the way viscose fabric ripples in such a soft ‘swishy’ way 🙂

Do you have a favourite fabric to nuno felt with?

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: