Today it’s my turn for a giveaway, I’m doing fibres too, and very predictably it’s naturals! There are 4 different breeds of natural wool tops totalling aproximately 300g. There’s roughly 100g of Texel and 50g of Devon:
And roughly 100g of Grey Norwegian and 50g of Zwartble tops:
I’m also including some embellishment fibres, aproximately 150g altogether. There’ll be fibres like Ramie, Bamboo fibre, Kapok, Cotton top and Soy staple:
And Ramie, Plastic Fibre, Nylon Fibre and Cotton fibre:
I’ll try to include as many different fibres as possible. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. Make sure you use a valid email address because I’ll use that to contact you for postage details. I’ll announce the winner on the 3rd of February, so check back then. Good Luck!
I laid this wall hanging out about a week or so before I got time to felt it, and I think it ended up being ‘upside down’. I wrote down the wools and fibres I used as I laid it out, but I think I forgot a few! Also, I added a few locks to the bottom just before I felted it, but I’m certain that was originally the top:
I added some pieces of hand-spun yarn I’d made mostly from bits left over from carding, I spun them quite thickly, and didn’t do anything with them after wards, just wound them onto card. This one is on the row of white Chubut, a ‘new’ to me wool I got from wollknoll, which felts so nicely and looks really nice too.
These are some cotton fibres: cotton top, cotton fibre and cotton nepps on carded Portuguese Merino, with some soy staple and carded Gotland.
I’ve been dyeing some cellulose fibres recently too for taking to the Makefest at the Science and Industry Museum. I’m getting the hang of it now, but I don’t think my first lot of fibres turned out as nice as I’d like. I did some Viscose fibre recently, and this turned out really nice. These are some of the reds, oranges and yellows:
And some yellows, greens, blues and purples:
I don’t like the way dyeing cellulose fibres wastes so much water with the rinsing, but it is easier for me to do large amounts than it is with acid dyes, not that I had much choice, even mixing up just 500ml each of red, yellow, blue and black was more than enough to dye about 200g of fibre and I had to look for other things to dye so as not to waste it 🙂 I tried dyeing Kapok fibre too, that stuff is practically impossible to wet, it seems to form a ‘skin’ around itself, so dyeing gave some interesting results as it behaved the same way, and when the fibre was separated, the centre wasn’t dyed. This is some rose and lilac coloured kapok:
I had been traveling during the holidays and on the return home I had to start working on baby shower favors for the shower I’m throwing in California for my daughter in law later this month. It’s an exciting time, but also stressful with additional travels for graduations and birthdays coming up.
One of the first things I did when I returned was to go to The Fold to stock up on fiber. I needed primary colors to work on the color wheel for our first quarter challenge.
I also bought some Yak and ramie.
I’m not a pink person, but my first granddaughter will be born soon so I stocked up. I’ve been making booties for party favors, but I don’t think I bought enough roving. Thank you to forum member (Tina) Cherry for providing me with the template.
While we were in Hawaii my husband Craig and I had the opportunity to meet Tina Cherry and her husband for lunch at Duke’s On The Beach. Thanks for lunch Tina and Stan! We had a great visit.
Samples made.
I wanted one side to be lighter than the other so I proceeded to make batts combining white and pink to lighten the color.
I made 12 resists. Since I’m not sure how many people will attend the shower, I expect to make extras. I used two layers. One light and one darker.
Process started.
Here’s the third side done waiting to put the final layer on.
So far I’ve made 24 experimenting with different ways to speed up the process. Since we are in the middle of a blizzard here in the Chicago area, I ordered more fiber from Paradise Fibers in Spokane. I’m hoping it will arrive by Wednesday when I’m sure to be out. And of course, I have to decide how to decorate and fill them.
I thought I’d make myself a felt cover for a ring binder notebook I’ve started using for notes about batts, fibre packs and etsy listings. I made a piece of felt a few weeks ago from merino and embellishment fibre blends. I used lots of different fibres: Milk Protein fibre, Hemp, Flax, Ramie, Banana, Bamboo top and fibre; Viscose top and fibre, Trilobal nylon, Acrylic laps, Plastic fibre and Egyptian cotton. This is the whole piece after felting:
I recently made another notebook and made the straps to go through the Delrin clips from felt, and it looked really nice, so I thought I’d do the same for this one. This is the front:
It took hours to sew (at least 9 episodes of Hawaii Five – 0!) because I machine stitched the straps into place on the back (with my hand operated Singer), and then hand sewed everything else and finished off the edges with blanket stitch.
I left the natural felt edge for the front inside flap.
I cut the back flap to size and used the offcuts for the straps.
I don’t often spend so much time on something for myself, but I’m glad I did, I really like it 🙂
I thought it was time I did another Giveaway 🙂 I’ve gone through my stash of embellishment fabrics, fibres and scraps and put together a package that should give you plenty of choices for adding extras to your felt creations. These are some gorgeous metallic novelty yarns/fancy fibres. There are 5 different ones each about 3 metres long.
There are also some shorter lengths of novelty yarns in all different colours and types.
These gorgeous crinkly fibres are from another novelty yarn that I unravelled. I used a lot of them in this piece here.
There are some pieces and scraps of silk:
Organza
Gratuitous supermacro of organza 🙂
and synthetic fabrics
There is also some Cotton Noil
And some natural fibres and top, Top L-R Egyptian Cotton fibre, Crimped Viscose fibre, Bamboo Fibre. Bottom L-R: Flax, Ramie, Banana top.
If you’d like to win this fabric and fibre giveaway, simply comment on this post. I’ll announce the winner Next Sunday, 21st October. Please can the winner comment on the announcement post within 2 days so I can contact you for your postal address, thanks a lot 🙂
FORUM
Most of our readers know about our Forum, but if you don’t, it’s a community of felting and fibre artists from around the world who get together to chat and ask each other questions about anything felt, fabric or fibre related…or chat about the usual things like the weather 🙂 We love reading the comments here on the blog and visiting the blogs of anyone who posts and has a link to theirs, and it’d be nice to be able to keep in touch more and build more community links. We’re all interested in the fibre arts, so if your interests are felting, mixed media, spinning, weaving, freeform crochet or something else we need to know about, come and join us, share photos of what you’re working on, ask for advice, give help to fellow fibre artists, meet friends and have fun!
Earlier this year, I made a piece of felt intending to make a notebook cover out of it. The base is natural grey Merino and on the top there is: crimped viscose; black viscose top; banana fibre; hemp; soybean fibre and top; milk protein fibre; black and white bamboo top; ramie; ingeo; flax; silk top; egyptian cotton and cotton gauze.
I’d really like to use a yarn or thread spun from natural grey wool to sew it up, preferably not too expensive. If anyone knows anywhere selling natural yarns, I’d be really grateful to know 🙂
Every now and again, I like to try felting with things found in the garden. A while ago I tried bamboo leaves between layers of felt which turned out really well. I also tried some pampas grass flowers (Cortaderia) at the same time, and was surprised how well that felted with very little anchorage. The pampas is felted to the surface and on this piece is just artistic/decorative, it wouldn’t stand up to handling etc.
I don’t know what plant I used in the third piece, it is some little branches from a tumbleweed my girlfriend saw while out walking her dog and brought home for me. I love the way it looks held up to the light, it almost looks stitched.
Notebook cover before felting
Notebook cover after felting
Pampas Grass Flower
Tumbleweeds
Tumbleweed held to the window
*** Sorry for the lay out and the use of the carousel yet again. I did originally format the post so that the photos appeared between the text in the relevant places, but, like Ann last week (and me every time I try to include photos) what was published was nothing like how it was originally layed out. After 3 attempts to get it to stay how I write it, I’m giving up. To see larger photos, click ‘permalink’ under the photos in the carousel.
Although a lot of the speciality fibre tops seem to look very similar at first, especially the white ones, they all have their own unique qualities. It’s interesting to try the different fibres on different types of wool to find out how they work together. Sometimes, they really compliment each other. Other times, like Banana fibre on grey Suffolk, they give interesting textural results. One thing I like to try is lots of different fibres on one type of wool. This shows the differences in how the fibres work with the same wool and also which would work well together with the same wool. I recently got some nice brown Finnish wool tops and tried 7 different speciality fibres with it. I alternated between the white/silvery fibres and the creamy/golden fibres. In order from Top to Bottom, I used: Banana fibre tops; Soybean tops; Ingeo tops; Flax; Milk Protein fibre tops; Hemp and Ramie tops.
Earlier this year I made a Merino and Hemp pouch which was ‘lined’ with cotton gauze. The texture was gorgeous. I’ve used the gauze a few times along with other fibres, and it always looks great, so I thought I’d try it on its own with some dark brown Corriedale. I’d planned to use it just as a test piece, but I really liked how it turned out, so I tried it in a frame I’d recently bought and loved the way it looked.
What have you been working on lately? Do you have a favourite combination of other/speciality fibres that work well together? Or a fibre or fabric like the gauze which makes a great feature by itself?
*** If you want to see decent sized pictures, click on ‘Permalink’ under the photo. For some reason that carousel thing makes them ridiculously small
And roughly 100g of Grey Norwegian and 50g of Zwartble tops:
I’m also including some embellishment fibres, aproximately 150g altogether. There’ll be fibres like Ramie, Bamboo fibre, Kapok, Cotton top and Soy staple:
And Ramie, Plastic Fibre, Nylon Fibre and Cotton fibre:
I’ll try to include as many different fibres as possible. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post. Make sure you use a valid email address because I’ll use that to contact you for postage details. I’ll announce the winner on the 3rd of February, so check back then. Good Luck!
