viscose fibre – Felting and Fiber Studio

Old Pieces and New Pieces

October 16, 2016 zedster66 Comments 18 comments

About 7 years ago, I made this piece of nuno felt:

It seemed like the perfect piece for making into a money purse, so that’s what I did:

I made a section with a zip for coins and a section behind that for my Supermarket ‘loyalty cards’:

When I was writing a blog post not so long ago about liking to use nuno felt for coin purses because they’re hard wearing and don’t pill/bobble much, I thought I should photograph my purse one day to show how it has held up. So, I did! This sits in the bottom of my bag and has done for at least 6 years since I made it, and the only noticeable difference (to me, anyway) is the curve on the flap where it closes, and on the bottom from the weight of coins, so it doesn’t lie flat when opened anymore:

I forgot to take a photo of the front with it closed, but this is a photo of the back, not bad for 6 years old, is it?!

A couple of years ago I stitched together some felt offcuts, then put the piece through the washing machine. I’m sure I blogged about it, but I can’t find it to show the original piece, sorry. Anyway, the last time I had the sewing machine out, I made a pouch from the felt piece. I used a woven wristband cut in half for the closure:

The only recent things I’ve managed to make are some more of those scruffy/tassley pieces I’ve shown before. I wanted a couple more samples in neutral/less ‘delicate’ colour schemes, so made a black and red piece:

And, a black and white piece:

And because I love supermacros, a close up of some visoce texture:

Edit: How to Make a coin purse with a zip tutorial: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zedster01/albums/72157626049445520

Dutch and Russian Wool

March 20, 2015 zedster66 Comments 18 comments

I got some ‘Yellowish Dutch Wool‘ from wollknoll, 34 mic ‘not suitable for felting’, it said. It seemed to felt fine for me:

I don’t know what breed it is, I’d guess Texel, maybe someone who’s bought it knows? Here’s a close up of a corner:

I Thought I’d try a variety of fibres again, so the top row is a blend of black Viscose tops and Ingeo, the narrow band in the middle is Fake Angora, and the bottom is black Bamboo and White Bamboo blended.

Different angle:

This is a close up of the Viscose and Ingeo:

And close up of the fake Angora (it has a strange feel to it, and looks kind of waxy):

Another vaguely listed wool I bought was ‘Russian-Camelhair‘. I’m guessing from the way they describe things on wollknoll, that ‘Camelhair’ is the colour, it’s more reddish though. And this is also 34 mic but ‘This wool is especially suitable for felting’. Another guess is that this is Romanov wool. It seems to be double coated like a lot of the ones I ordered. I used Ramie fibre with this:

The circular parts are Ramie that I fluffed up then patted down into little discs:

This is a close up of Ramie just fluffed up and added:

The sun came out as I was taking this, I usually try not to take photos in the sun, but I liked this one:

Have you tried any new wools or fibres lately?

Teeswater and Needle Felting

August 8, 2014 zedster66 Comments 18 comments

I know the last post I did about natural wools and fibres featured Viscose as well, but after Ruth’s post about Wensleydale, I thought I’d show a piece that I’d made using ‘curly’ wool too, though this is Teeswater. I do have some raw Teeswater locks that I bought from Sara’s Texture Crafts, but for this I just used commercial Teeswater tops. Tops can be quite deceiving as it isn’t always obvious what the characteristics of the wool are, and they often all look quite similar. Until they’re felted that is. You don’t get quite the same results as using washed and combed or carded wool, but a lot of the features do ‘come back’ once the wool has been wet. By hand, I blended some black viscose in with the Teeswater tops for the top layer.

Where the wool and fibre are blended well it has a greyish look to it.

And some parts are a bit more defined.

This is the back of the piece, I just love the look of felt like this 🙂

Doing a needlefelted piece for Marilyn’s Monet Challenge got me in the mood for doing some more. So far I’ve wet felted the backgrounds for 3 pieces, and finished one of them. I played around with a photo I took a few years ago at the beach in Crosby, not far from Liverpool:

Then I needle felted a piece based on it:

Using Black and White Viscose together

July 15, 2014 zedster66 Comments 25 comments

I think most of the natural wool and fibre panels I’ve posted about have used one breed of wool and one fibre. I did post about Humbug (black and white striped) Jacob about a month ago, and I’d used both black and white viscose top with that. This first piece is light grey Swaledale, it’s mostly a creamy white with light and dark grey flecks which give it the light grey appearance. I blended some black and viscose tops by hand and laid them on top of the Swaledale:

The overall appearance of the blend is a dark grey, with white streaks:

The separate colours are a bit more obvious close up, I like the way the fibres appear to sit just on the surface, lightly tangled with the Swaledale fibre.

This is a bit closer and slightly at an angle, showing where the fibre is a little bit thicker, I like the twists and waves.

This next piece is one of my favourites, it’s English 56s with Angora locks. I don’t know if there’s a proper name for older goat locks, I’ve heard ‘yearling’ used, but I don’t know how old the goat was these are from. They are a lot thicker and generally less soft and more wavy than curly kid mohair. I loosely combed the locks through a handcarder with either black or white viscose, to blend with the locks. I laid them out loosely alternating each row: black, white; white, black etc.

An angled shot:

A close up where the locks were felted in more:

And a supermacro of course:

Do you prefer combinations of wool and fibres which have lots of character and texture or do your prefer the more softer effects of fibres closely felted to the surface of a smoother wool?

New Notebook Cover

October 22, 2013 zedster66 Comments 10 comments

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.