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Giveaway Winner

Giveaway Winner

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Thanks a lot to everyone who entered the Bits and Pieces Giveaway this week, it was really nice to see all the great comments 🙂  The lucky winner is …..

Congratulations, Isabell 🙂  Please can you leave a comment on this post so I can contact you for your postal address, thanks a lot 🙂

I’ve been having a clear out lately and have spent a lot of time going through smelly dusty bags and boxes from the loft. Most of them contain 20 years of birthday and Christmas cards, clothes I’ll never wear again but can’t bear to part with or cassette tapes from around 1983-1987 🙂  But I got a really nice surprise when I opened one of the bags and discovered 5 huge silk scarves, each about 43 inches square! I think I’ll be doing some nuno felting fairly soon!

I’ve been thinking about Karen’s 4th Quarter Studio Challenge about the Weather recently which isn’t hard being British, apart from tea it’s what we think about most 🙂  I saw this cloud this morning and thought I’d take a photo to add to my collection.

I haven’t quite decided what I’ll do yet, but we often have 4 seasons in a day here, so I’m spoilt for choice 🙂

Making Felted Soap

Making Felted Soap

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I have a show coming up soon and I am almost out of felted soap. They are always popular at Christmas time.

Here you can see some of my bins of small amounts of different colours, the pieces of nylon stocking I use for felting in and the first soap wrapped up in wool.

first a wrap a thin strip of wool around the edge of the soap then roll it up in a wider strip of roving. Next I pic a complementary or contrasting colour to wrap around the soap. I usually do a spiral from one side to the other.

I use small pieces of nylon stocking to put the wool in for felting. It’s the only thing I use nylons for these days. The reason I put the soap and wool bundle in a stocking is to keep it under control. the first thing that happens when you wet the wool is it gets bigger and its hard to keep it all in place.

Here is a soap with some silk added. this is silk roving that is teased apart. I also us pieces of silk hanky to give it a marble like appearance.

I managed to get this far yesterday but I didn’t manage to get them felted. so here is a picture of a different batch all finished. there are 2 with silk hanky on them.

That’ s the way I do it. If you have any questions or tales of soap making tell us about it.

Giveaway-Bits and Pieces

Giveaway-Bits and Pieces

Comments 41 comments

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!

4th Quarter Challenge _ Weather

4th Quarter Challenge _ Weather

Comments 12 comments

We’ve actually had such a long cold wet winter here in oz that the site of some sunshine is so lovely and with the weather finally starting to warm up I found myself at the beach briefly the other day just taking in the ocean and some warmth, so I thought for this challenge we could felt a piece depicting our own weather no matter where in the world we live, and be it the ocean and sunshine or freezing temperatures with your lovely snow topped mountains, its your seasons.

And just a couple of lovely pictures of our Island in the sun !!

This is a place called the Nobbies were all the little fairy penguins live

Just a gorgeous sunset on the Island, would make a gorgeous felt piece

Looking forward to seeing everyone’s weather challenge to see the difference in our temps right now. Happy Felting and we’d love to see you in our interactive forum where we all love to share some great information or just have a chat, so come along and join in the fun http://www.feltandfiberstudio.com/

Just For Fun

Just For Fun

Comments 16 comments

It’s been quite a while since I made a piece of felt just for the fun of it. And quite a while since I made a piece of felt without worrying about even layers, straight edges, nice corners etc 🙂  So it was a lot of fun making this piece of green felt. I got out all my greeny shades of wool, fabric and fibres and started laying it out.

I started with two plain layers of merino tops, then added a third layer of lots of different greeny shades of merino blended with fibres like plastic, viscose, silk, banana and bamboo. Then I started adding all the other fibres, fabrics and yarns. I unravelled some fancy fibres I had in green, yellow and blue shades.

I used fabrics like organza, silk, tulle and a few shades of cotton gauze

There were a few sparkly bits

And lots of shiny bits too 🙂

What have you been working on just for fun lately?

Felt Bubbles

Felt Bubbles

Comments 13 comments

A while back I went to a felting friends for a few days fun.  She showed me how to make bubbles and cut them  open to great effect. Here are the pictures of what I did.

First of course I laid out some wool to felt. But these are samples so plain felt won’t do . I added silk threads and a silk square and some silk roving and other wools to see how it would all go. This is the underside.

This is what the top side looks like

Then of course there was the usual rolling and fulling.

rolling rolling rolling

Here they are all finished and ready for the marbles.

The next step is to put marbles in while it is still damp. You pull the felt tightly around the marble and secure it with an elastic and now it is a bubble. We used the elastics they use to put braids in horses tails and manes because they are small, stretchy,  strong and cheap.  You put in as many as you like and what ever sizes you like. You can also use felt balls. the felt balls are good if you want to leave them uncut. Marbles are to heavy for that.

Here they are all tied up.

Felt with marbles tied in to make bubbles

Here they are cut.  I cut the tops off , I cut x’s and star patterns and some I tuned inside out. if you cut more off you see more of the inside and you can stretch them flatter too.

Bubbles cut open

You can see how the underside becomes the inside of the bubbles. These samples started out about 6×8 inches and the finished pieces are about 1.5 by 2.5 inches. They take up a lot of room. I only have 2 of them left my friends dog ate one. I think I will glue them to some leather and make broaches out of them. They are lots of fun to do. I made some wrist cuffs with this method and I will blog about them next week.

Dyeing Some Waste

Dyeing Some Waste

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Dyeing some waste.  Throwsters waste that is and I suppose it must have been trash at some point or they wouldn’t call it that. Throwing is was they call reeling silk for thread and this is the left over little bits.  I have a batch of white and needed some colours for a project.  The pictures of wet silk an bags did not turn out but I have some nice pictures of the end.

I dyed small amounts in plastic sandwich bags. First I placed each blob of waste  in a bag and added some soapy water to get it wet. I let it sit to soak while I got the dye ready. I used MX dye as it would be the fastest and easiest. I poured of the extra water out then poured in the dye,  just enough to get it all wet. I squished it around in the bag to make sure it all got dye.  No worries about felting the silk, a nice change from dyeing wool.  I did the same for all the colours and let them sit for 10 min. I added a solution of PH up and water. Buying the pool chemical is the cheapest way to buy Sodium Carbonate, especially at the end of the season.

I made a solution and poured in enough to cover the silk. I let it sit for about half an hour then drained and rinsed the silk. Here is what it looks like drying on my front porch.

Throwsters Waste Drying

Not so great looking. I had squeezed all the extra water out of them. However after they were dry I fluffed them up and they look like this.

Fluffed up
Second Half All Fluffed Up

As you can see fluffed up they barely fit on the same drying rack in 2 batches. My project didn’t work out, the waste I used  on the surface sank into the courser wool I was using and disappeared so I have nothing to show you right now. I am planing to use some more on hats so I will do a post with them later.

 

Works In Progress

Works In Progress

Comments 12 comments

I feel like I’ve been working on a production line recently, making lots of pieces of felt that will eventually be made into something. Some of the pieces were made with specific things in mind, some were just for the fun of it or to try things out. I never really enjoy making felt during the summer when it’s hot, so around about this time of year I start working through my stacks of felt, working out what I want to use them for, or having an idea and searching through to find the perfect piece. After measuring, cutting, pinning and sewing, I then have a nice pile ready to making a start on stitching and adding buttons etc.

One piece of felt that I found when I was searching through, was a sample I’d made using silk throwster’s waste, rainbow trilobal nylon and nylon fibre that I’d dyed. It wasn’t a pretty piece, but then it was only a sample 🙂 The first piece I started to make out of it is a pouch just the right size for holding a pack of cards, small notepad and a pencil-perfect for train journeys with young kids. There’s silk throwster’s waste on the left and dyed nylon on the right.

The second piece I started to make is a camera case. This has silk fibres at the top and rainbow trilobal nylon at the bottom.

Both the camera case and card pouch are lined with cotton fabrics. The 3rd piece is a pouch for earbuds. The front has trilobal nylon and the back has silk fibres. All 3 of these pieces have a loop of elastic on the top for using with a button to keep them closed.

These next two pieces are a camera case and an ipod case, made from a nuno felted piece using muslin. I added machine stitching in an uneven zig-zag pattern to the felt for the camera case, just for a little extra thickness. I’d made this for my new camera, but I’m torn between this and the one above. These pieces are the only ones I’ve finished with blanket stitches so far.

These last two pieces are coin pouches. I first made one of these a couple of years ago because I was tired of reaching into my back pocket and trying to find coins, but getting a handful of keys instead.

Now all I have to do is find a few films to watch while I get started on blanket stitching the edges of all of these! Do you have a particular way of working? Do you like to streamline your process, work on a few items at once or maybe complete a project before starting another one?

Felt Cuffs Started

Felt Cuffs Started

Comments 4 comments

I was inspired by Zed’s post about felted cuffs. http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2012/07/25/wrist-cuffs/

I have  some felted water bottle covers that have been hanging around for to long.

Everyone tells me what a good idea they are but no one buys them. So I decided to repurpose them. I started by cutting them in to rings and then cutting across them to make them flat. I also made a slit at one end of each for the buttons.

As you can see they look kind of wobbly before they are refelted. I rolled them in a place mat made out of sticks. They are great for little projects. I kept stretching them so they would not end up to short .

and the yellow ones

All the covers are now cuffs. I haven’t managed to get anything else done on them. I have picked out a bag of buttons to use for the closures. Then I plan to do some beading and  if I get my machine serviced some free motions embroidery. I have never tried it before.

Here are the buttons I’ve picked out.

What have you repurposed?

Making things from spare felt

Making things from spare felt

Comments 9 comments

A lot of the times when I make a piece of felt, I don’t really have anything specific in mind for it. I just have an idea for a colour scheme, or want to try out new fabric or fibres or see how different things work together. Unless I’m doing a sample to keep, I try to make pieces that will be big enough to be used for something, like a book cover or a purse. I know from discussions we’ve had on the forum that I’m not alone in doing this, others have a ‘felt box’ where finished pieces go until the day we realise they are just ‘perfect’ for what we have in mind 🙂

Recently, I had a look through my box and found a nuno felted piece I made a while ago, it was just the right size for a small book-cover. I usually use three layers of wool when I make pieces that will become book-covers, but when I made this piece, I wanted to keep some of the nuno texture in the silk, so just used two.

This is the front:

And this is the back:

I know most of us stay in touch with friends and family by email today, but I still like to keep an address book, just in case and I do have some odd relatives who don’t have the internet!

Many years ago I bought some small mirrors to use with some mosaic tiles that I had, but they were too thick, so they stayed on a shelf. Then a few years ago I made a case for one and gave it to my mum as a present. I have another couple of boxes for felt off-cuts and looking through one, I found a piece I thought would be perfect for another mirror case, it was an off cut from a piece of felt I’d made for a trivet. I made this one slightly different and cut a hole in the centre of the felt so the mirror could be seen.

I should have wiped the mirror 🙂

Do you have a box or place to store your unused pieces of felt? What do you use your offcuts for?