Tuesday 8 April 2014

Another Felt Hat

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my first felt hat. I had a think about how I could improve on the design and resist and thought I'd give it another go. I also thought more about shaping it and blocking it to get a better shape. This time I used an upturned glass bowl with a couple of microfibre towels and bubble wrap on to finish the felting/fulling. Last time I said I'd used mt head and for some reason most people who commented on the Felting and Fiber Studio site had a vision of me with soggy soapy roving wrapped around my head frantically rubbing for hours! :) What I really meant was for pulling the hat into shape and the final fulling stage, I used my head. This was the finished hat:


As it dried, I removed the bubble-wrap and added the lid from a storage tub, this gave the top a flatter shape. I kept checking the size, and removed another towel and let it dry with just one towel and the lid over the bowl. This is the flatter top.


I increased the size of the resist slightly, but this time only used 2 layers of wool, I thought this would keep it softer, and not shrink so much. The idea worked in theory, but the amount of fulling I had to do to get the correct shrinkage caused a lot of wool migration which makes the hat look very fuzzy and the colours are dulled. This is the wool migrating through and over silk:


Yellow and red wool migrating through blue:


Wool over silk and cotton gauze:


I might shave it carefully to remove some of the fuzz. You can see the shape a bit better from underneath, and I had the narrow sides again, where the edges of the resist were, I'm working on ideas to prevent that for next time.

I mentioned in my bag post last week that I'd been looking at eyelet kits, but couldn't decide. I'm glad I couldn't, because while I was out on Friday I had a good look around a 'bargain' shop and found myself a kit for £2.50. I also found a pack of 2 rainbow luggage straps, which I'm hoping will be perfect for the drawstring channel of my Pollock bag. If not, they will be perfect for something else! I also found some woven cord too, which will be ideal for drawstrings. I got a couple of different colours of this.


4 comments:

  1. Oh Wow! Your hat is awesome!! I know you know there's migrating...but from here its looks soooo cool! Love the many colours (single and blended!) and the shape! Fantabulous!
    Exciting finds in the bargain shop too!
    Ali x

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    1. Thanks, Ali :)
      I like the migrating in some places, it has a nice effect!

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  2. It's a beautiful hat in a lovely shape and happy colours. Are you going to wear it? Well done on the bargain haul.

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    1. Thanks, Lyn :)
      It's a bit too bright and a tiny bit too big for me to wear, but hopefully I've learned enough to make one my size now :)

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