wet felting – Page 25 – Felting and Fiber Studio

One Artist’s Journey into Fiber

May 1, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 20 comments

Our guest artist today is Jill Chadek with Merino and Mulberry in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. She is also our banner sponsor for May on the Felt and Fiber Studio Forum.

To touch something soft and silky awakens our earliest emotions!
The pleasure of the touch of silk started my exploration of silk painting. A few
years later I was introduced to felting, that magical process of transforming
dampened clumps of wool fibers into cloth! Then, when I discovered that I
could incorporate the two, working the fibers to lock into the silk I was hooked!

Through time, that magical process of felting has inspired and allowed me to
express my passion for color, pattern and texture. Felting, allows me to “paint”
with fibers to create personal accessories such as scarves, shawls, vest, hats
and handbags.

Prior to felting I had dabbled in many mediums but none have held my
attention and interest like felting has. I love working with my hands, the tactile
experience of painting with the fine and silky fibers. It still makes me catch my
breath when I wet the fibers down and the wool gets all loose feeling. I have to
remind myself that soon the fibers will start to migrate and tangle and the
magic of creating a fabric will happen right in my hands!

If you are new to felting, have patience and have fun! It will be frustrating at
times! There are as many different ways to create felt as there are felters, and
you will find that everyone swears their way is best! So many variables are at
play: the type of fibers, water hardness and temperature, soap, pressure,
thickness, and added embellishments, just to name a few. No wonder no simple
equation will work! It is only through exploration and experience that you will
learn the “feel” of the fibers at the different stages. So have fun and play!

Though I consciously have a design in mind when I start a project, my
unconscious, and the fibers influence my hands and the final outcome, which is
usually fabulous!

I enjoy that even after all of my years as a felting artist there is still something
new to learn and to explore. Right now I am loving creating hats! I do not use
any hat forms but instead let each hat tell me what shape it would like to be. I
love that while making a fashion statement they are also keeping it’s wearer
cozy warm! I am truly grateful for the joy that I experience in the creation of
each item and trust that wonderful emotions are also awakened in the wearer.
Please feel free to browse my website www.merinoandmulberry.com. It is my hope
that my creations will inspire you to stretch and grow as a felting artist. Also on
my website you can view a video of me using the E-Z Roller Felting Machine of
which I am the international representative. This machine has allowed me to
continue felting when I was experiencing terrible vertigo and more recently
when I had shoulder and neck problems. It removes the 1 negative of felting –
the physical chore of rolling your project, therefore allowing you to focus on the
fun, creative aspect of this beautiful medium. If you would like to learn more,
just contact me!

Thanks for sharing your artist journey with us Jill!

Birdhouse Class and Lambs.

April 27, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 20 comments

It is spring! Saturday I taught a Birdhouse Class.

Everyone had fun decorating their birdhouses.

Of course there was rubbing and rolling and throwing

and everyone ended up with great looking birdhouses. Bernadette (second from the left) wanted a feeder so she made her opening much bigger.

The other way I know that spring is here I we had our first lambs . We started with a bang, quadruplets. They are less than an hour old here, so not even cleaned up properly yet.

and the reason my post is late this morning is because I have a visitor.

Wine Anyone?

April 23, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 22 comments

I wanted to try making a gift bag for wine in felt. I first made a resist using the wine bottle as a model. But I wasn’t sure about shaping the bottom.

The base layer was black corriedale. Then I used a layer of merino. And finally I made a batt using forest green, a heather purple, sage and black bamboo for the last layer.

For embellishments and design I made leaves from a nuno prefelt and used 100% Peruvian wool thick and thin yarn, locks and needle felted grapes.

I finished fulling the bag on the bottle, but because of the narrowing of the design it’s not an easy in and out for the bottle.

After it was semi dry, I cut holes at the top to thread some yarn through to tighten it around the neck. Then I turned down the top and sewed extra leaves on and wound the excess yarn from the closure around a small dowel to emulate the ringlet vines on a grape wine.

Also, the bottom ended up having “wings” so I tucked them under and sewed them to the bottom. There was a hollow in the bottom of the bottle so it worked out well.

It was a little hairy so I shaved it. Next time, I would only use two layers and redesign the shape.

Even with some problems, I think it will make a nice display on a bar.

Have you made anything similar? Do you think it needs anything else?

New Samples

April 21, 2015 zedster66 Comments 12 comments

I’m going to do workshops at Manchester Museum of Science and Industry MakeFest in August, so I wanted to make a couple of felt samples to get an idea of how much wool I need to order for supplies. I made a 10 x 10 inch sample, using pinks, since I didn’t want to waste my nicer colours 🙂 It actually turned out alright!

The other one I made is kind of double sided. I wanted to try out some multi-coloured Merino I got from wollknoll. So one side is just ‘plain’:

And I thought I’d make the other side colourful and full of extra bright fibres and sparkle to take with me as one of my example pieces, some people seem to be drawn to that:

These are some shiny synthetic threads I saved from a piece of fabric, which I think was synthetic habotai:

And some neon green crimped Nylon:

I also made a small sample using some Stone Sheep I bought and carded. I used some of my dyed Soy tops with it:

Small Bags

April 11, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 20 comments

I have been listening to audio books on my phone. It’s a great way to “read” a book and still get some work done. The problem was that I am moving around. In and out of the kitchen or one end to the other of the studio and kept moving in and out of hearing range. I decided I needed a little bag so I could pop my phone in it plug in my ear phones and no more problem.

I made 3 little bags . Sorry I took no pictures of them being made.

This one I used oval shaped beads with and orange stripe for the petals of the flower. When I cut the holes to reveal the beads I cut one of them to large. The bead was staying in but only just. So I got out some orang embroidery thread and put some stitches all around to secure it. I did the rest so it looks like I did it on purpose.

This one I want to embroider but haven’t decided how yet. Maybe a couple of rows of yarn stitched along the edge of the spiral. The pin is just holding the flap shut for the picture

This last one I plan to either needle felt or embroider on some sheep.

It will make a nice match for my name tag and my business card holder. The strap on the card holder is some of the first silk I ever spun. It whole bag is looking a little worn. It has been living in my purse for most of 10 years so I shouldn’t complain.

I haven’t figured out what to do about straps for the bags yet. Felt ropes or some sort of webbing or woven strap. I don’t want it to cut into my neck when I am wearing it. What do you suggest?

Sampling with New WOW Fibers

April 7, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 19 comments

Cathy Wycliff (Luvswool) and I placed an order with WOW last month. A real treasure of new fibers to try. But we had a dilemma, do we make samples or wait for a project. Cathy had a good idea to make samples to the prefelt stage. This way we’d have an idea of what the properties were of each of the fibers, but could still use them in future projects.

Cathy did the first few samples. The first photo shows all 3 samples — White Woodland, Jacobs Fleece and South Down.

The second photo is Jacob’s fleece with rose fiber embellishment. The fleece is coarse and scratchy and not an easy felter. It reminds me very much of the Hebridean wool roving I purchased in the Scotland isles. The rose fiber easily felted and finished with a brilliant sheen. It’s gorgeous against the dark brown/black Jacob’s wool.

South Down is next and the and beneath is Whiteface Woodland–very little difference in look or feel or felting ability. Both were were medium coarse felters. All three base fibers were felted only to the pre-felt stage.

I decided to try different fibers since we had a variety to choose from. I was very surprised at the differences between the feel of the fiber and the end results. Here are all four before felting. Top left is White Eider, top right is White Norwegian, lower left is Oatmeal Blue Faced Leicester and lower right is Manx.

The Manx ( top) had a staple of about 4-6 inches and was soft with a very slight crimp or coarseness. I used a half ounce of fiber for each sample. The Oatmeal BFL (bottom) was similar to merino during the layout.

Sorry the photos aren’t great. I use my phone. After felting, the Manx was spongy and coarser than expected. The BFL was slightly spongy and wiry than before felting. It wasnt as coarse as the Manx.

The White Norwegian had a slight coarse feel and a staple of about 4-5 inches. The White Eider top was coarse to the touch with a staple of 3-4 inches. It also felt a bit clumpier.

The Eider is on the left and was very spongy and coarse to the touch. The White Norwegian was coarse after felting and somewhat spongy.

It was fun experimenting, but I’m not sure how I’ll use these fibers. Cathy uses more of the coarser fibers than I do. Any suggestions? Have you used any of these fibers before?

Karakul

April 5, 2015 zedster66 Comments 16 comments

I was hoping to get some time for felting yesterday, but I had vertigo and felt rotten so I’m posting some pieces I made a few weeks ago. I got two different Karakul batts from wollknoll, one is just Karakul and the other is a Karakul and Merino blend. Just be warned if you google Karakul, you’ll probably get some pretty awful photos of dead lambs because their skin is used to make hats and coats because their wool is black and silky soft when they are born, and they don’t often make it that far so there’s quite a few photos of dead sheep too. This wool is sheared the usual way though. It is double coated and very wiry, it reminds me a lot of a Cairn Terrier my friend had when we were kids:

I used some dyed silvery flax with the Karakul, spreading it thinly across the top and bottom, and laid it vertically in the centre:

It looked like it was just sitting on the surface:

The contrast of the ‘dry’ looking Karakul and shiny flax, made the flax look like it was still wet:

The Karakul and Merino looked and felted similarly, though less ‘openly’ or loosely and was a lighter shade:

Both of the batts had bits of VM in which looked like porridge oats or tiny cornflakes. A few of the batts I got had similar VM:

I used some crimped Viscose fibre with this:

This is some Viscose which wasn’t teased apart much:

This is a patch where the Viscose was teased apart a lot and laid on quite thickly:

And this is where the teased out Viscose was laid quite sparsely:

Felt over Wire

March 30, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 18 comments

A couple of years ago while thrift store shopping, I came across a cute little wire baby buggy. I set it aside hoping for a reason to use it.

It is 5″H x 5″ L x 2.5″ W (12.7 cm x 12.7 cm x 6.35 cm).

I made a resist with a 30% shrinkage rate added two layers of merino per side which I thought would be a nice thickness to cover the wire.

Her is the outside layer done and stretched over the form to dry.

There seemed to be plenty of extra felt around so I could turn it inside except for the very front of the buggy top.

I made the second layer and inserted it inside.

That was a little tricky since it was a tight fit for my fingers so I used my trusty scoop and crochet hooks to get it in position.

It was a tight fit and there wasn’t enough felt to overlap the front of the buggy top. I had planned to do a blanket stitch to join them but the cluster of wires on the top made it impossible to do that.

I wrapped the front with some roving I rolled into a rope, then basted the stitches together, but I didn’t like the way that looked.

So I glued the layers together both on the top and sides then pulled out the basting. Not a great plan either since I burned my fingers with the glue gun even though I was using a cuticle stick to push into place. If I had more pink roving, I would have made a resist using more over the buggy top and perhaps made a double resist for inside and out in one piece. But I had to work with what I had.

For the inside, I placed a piece of cotton batting on the wire as a mattress. Then I proceeded to wrap the wheels with white yarn and stitch on some lace around the bottom and top of the buggy.

I still have to clean it up a bit then I’ll send it off to my daughter in law for the baby’s room. I thought it would be useful to store qtips or scissors, thermometer, etc. on her dresser.

Have you ever used a wire structure with felt?

Carding some Wool and Making some Felted Soap

March 26, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 14 comments

After I dyed my wool last week I had to recard it into batts. I have to do this because it became slightly felted during the rinsing process after dying. I have to rinse a lot more than some people because I have hard water. It doesn’t matter if I use a little dye for soft muted colour or lots of dye for strong bright colours. To recard the fiber, I strip it down into thin ropes. I feed the ropes into the carder. I have a large electric carder but you can do this with a small hand operated drum carder too. I have in the past. I am sorry to say that yesterday I took a nice long video of the carder working but it has disappeared from my phone. All I have are a few still shots.

This is the carder and infeed table. They are in my nice new studio space. It is all by itself at the moment until I can get the rest of my stuff sorted and my husband can finish the electrical work.

Here are the strips on the infeed table and the batt coming off onto the storage drum. I do feed the wool through twice as the first time it is still a bit stripy in density . I separate the batt into thin layers and feed it in again. I end up with very nice batts.

These are all a little less than 100grams/3.5ounses. I used them to make some felted soaps. I tear off a piece of batt and wrap it around the soap. I add a wool stripe or a piece of silk hanky and then pop them into the toe of a nylon. When I have a bunch ready I sit with an audio book and wet felt them all.

Here they are all ready to go in their nice bright spring/Easter colours.

I am starting to feel like spring with the longer day light hours we are getting. it puts me more in a mood to be felting. I would feel more like spring if there wasn’t still a couple of feet of snow on my lawn. I am however thankful I do not live in the Prince Edward Island on the east coast of Canada . They have had 16 feet of snow in the last two months the last being just a few days ago. I am sure they feel like spring will never come. Are you feeling like spring? Or perhaps you are in the southern hemisphere and are starting to feel like winter is coming?

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?

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One Artist’s Journey into Fiber

May 1, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 20 comments

Like this:

Birdhouse Class and Lambs.

April 27, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 20 comments

Like this:

Wine Anyone?

April 23, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 22 comments

Like this:

New Samples

April 21, 2015 zedster66 Comments 12 comments

Like this:

Small Bags

April 11, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 20 comments

Like this:

Sampling with New WOW Fibers

April 7, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 19 comments

Like this:

Karakul

April 5, 2015 zedster66 Comments 16 comments

Like this:

Felt over Wire

March 30, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 18 comments

Like this:

Carding some Wool and Making some Felted Soap

March 26, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 14 comments

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Dutch and Russian Wool

March 20, 2015 zedster66 Comments 18 comments

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