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Raw Fleece Helmet

Raw Fleece Helmet

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A little while ago I showed you  the prototype for a large felt helmet I was planning and the finished hat. http://wp.me/p1WEqk-2rU  now I thought I would show you some of  the process. There are lots of pictures.

I used a dog brush to fluff up the ends of the horns. I never manage to keep the ends dry. I taped the resist inside the horn to the hat resist and then added some brown wool under the white so it wouldn’t show so much inside.

attaching the horn attaching the horn 2

plastic wrapped horns I wrapped the horn in plastic again so it wouldn’t stick to the hat.

curls on

I added the wool for this side then did the same on the other side and added the raw unwashed Wensleydale fleece form a sheep named Wiki. It was important to use an unwashed flees so I could keep the curls and not have them all felted down. You can see the dirt running off when I got it wet. It took a lot of soapy water to get it wet.

 

dirty sheep horns after first roll

The horns were a not very white after the first rolling.

After washing all the dirt was gone.

hat dry hat dry horns

Even after fulling it was a big hat. I wanted to put it over a helmet but couldn’t find one so I put a hard hat harness inside so it is adjustable.

hard hat harnis

And here is me in my hat.

me in hat web

 

Around the Felting Studio and Farm this Week

Around the Felting Studio and Farm this Week

Comments 14 comments

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

Washing Some Wool

Washing Some Wool

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This weekend I decided to wash some of the masses of raw wool I have. This is a small piece from one of my sheep she is a mixed breed meat sheep. Here it is before washing.

Raw wool

I put it a large tub with hot water and dish soap.

wool soaking
wool soaking, close

Here is the water after the first soak. The problem with a dark fleece is you can never see how dirty it really is. Here is the water after the first wash.

dirty water

I washed it 3 more times  then gave it a rinse. The water was still to dirty and I washed again. So I had to wash it 5 times.  Then I rinsed it twice, the first rinse had some vinegar in the water.

washed wool

Here it is all dry. I don’t know if I will card it or use chunks of it to make something primitive looking.

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