Felt by Zed

Nylon

2012-01-28T10:03:00.000Z

Nylon is a great versatile fibre for using with felt. It is soft, shiny and can be dyed with acid dyes just like wool or silk. It is also really inexpensive and a small amount goes a long way. I made this first piece using just 3 colours of merino and 3 shades of dyed crimped nylon fibre: red, yellow and blue. I blended them togther to make more shades. It was really fluffy when I layed it out, but felted really nicely and flat, and had a soft, warm feel.

After Felting:

For this second piece I used trilobal nylon. This is sometimes given fancy names like 'Firestar' and a price tag to match, but it's just super-bright, shiny, inexpensive nylon. I used a rainbow blend from World of Wool, but separated the colours and blended them with similar shades of merino. The nylon created a really interesting texture, it gave the felt a kind of open look, even though it was well felted.

Close up of a corner:

I'd love to see what you make with nylon, whether it's felting, spinning, weaving or anything else :)

If you're interested in trying out different fibres, have a look at the Felting and Fiber Studio site, we have a section for other fibres, and have photos of man made and plant based fibres and photos of them used in felting. We also have an 'other fibres' category for all posts related to that.

Gorgeous fibre samples

2012-01-13T11:42:00.000Z

A few weeks ago, Karen sent me some gorgeous fibres. A few days ago I found time to make a few samples trying some of them out.

This is a sample using the sari silk ribbon, I untied a couple of pieces from the ends to test how it felted.

When I was looking at the sari silk ribbon, I noticed there were lots of stray threads tangled round the ribbons, so I pulled them off. I never throw any fibres away, even threads from the edges of frayed silk, because you can use them to make something like this:

The photos don't do it justice, the threads are shiny like tiny strips of coloured foil

Another gorgeous fibre that Karen sent me was dyed mulberry silks in really lovely colours. I made a sample of these in simple rows:

Aren't they gorgeous fibres? :)

Giveaway and New Studio Challenge

2012-01-10T09:38:00.000Z

In case you haven't seen it yet, Karen is offering over 100 grams of gorgeous fibres for our first Studio site giveaway. For a chance to win, all you have to do is visit the site and comment on the post.

There are some gorgeous handmade batts, Romney, merino wool, merino and silk, silk noil and sari silk ribbon.

Studio Challenge

For this first quarter, it was Ruth's turn to come up with the theme for the Studio Challenge. If you want to join in all the details are here. The challenge runs for 3 months, it's just for fun, but if you do join in, comment and link us to photos of your work, or join our flickr group and add your photos there.

Stitching

2012-01-06T12:33:00.000Z

I don't have a fancy sewing machine (mine's an old electric Singer without the power!) or know many stitches, but I do like it and would like to learn more. A few days ago I got my machine out and did some sewing onto a merino and milk protein fibre sample that I'd dyed. The sewing isn't very obvious but it adds something to it and makes the felt a bit firmer.

Close up:

I also learned a new stitch this week to add to my back stitch and blanket stitch :)

I learned Fly Stitch through Sharon B's Pin Tangle blog. Every week she is showing us how to do a new stitch. It's called Take a Stitch Tuesday and you can also get inspiration from clicking the links in comments to the blogs of other people who are learning too.

I probably should have used a better fabric or maybe Binca to get the spacing and stitch length more even, but I chose this nice piece of 100% cotton fabric (IKEA tea towel!) for its size so I could maybe make it into a little drawstring bag afterwards :)

Nice Surprise

2011-12-30T14:24:00.000Z

I got a nice surprise in the post today from Ruth :)
Not so long ago we were talking about threads and yarns. Ruth had hand dyed her own threads and I thought I'd like to try it, but didn't know if the laceweight was the right size. Ruth offered to send me some so I could see for myself. I didn't expect it to come so soon over the holidays and I certainly didn't expect all the gorgeous extras Ruth sent me!
Apart from the whole skein of lacewight yarn all tied ready for me to dye, there is a gorgeous hand made card Ruth made from painted fabric and some Stitch and Tear stabilizer for me to try for myself. She also sent me the most gorgeous hand dyed threads from her recent Level II Hand and Machine stitch course.
Thanks, Ruth! I love them all :)

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year

2011-12-24T09:12:00.000Z

I just wanted to say Thanks to everyone who's looked at my blog over this past year. I know I'm not a great blogger, and I really do appreciate all the lovely comments I get. I hope you all have a great end to the year and an even better 2012 :)

Gorgeous Fibres

2011-12-21T09:41:00.000Z

I had a surprise package from Karen yesterday. She had sent me the latest Felt magazine and some gorgeous fibres. There was some lovely Tissue Silk; which has an unusual texture similar to silk chiffon, some very shiny Mulberry Silk in gorgeous colours; some purple and red organza yarn, which I'd never heard of; some beautiful sari silk ribbon; hemp; and the softest Merino ever, Optim Merino, which is 18.5 micron merino stretched to make it 15 micron. Thanks, Kaz!

I'm really looking forward to trying it all, especially the hemp and merino. I recently made a scarf from 18.5 micron merino and that was unbelievably soft, and I'm really curious about whether the hemp is similar to flax, that looks a lot like dried grass, but is soft, shiny and a kind of platignum colour after felting.

The Felting and Fiber Studio Forum

2011-12-16T12:25:00.000Z

We recently started a forum for felt and fibre enthusiasts to come together and share their love of all things fibrey. We already have quite a lot of members and there's a really nice community spirit. We'd love to have more members though. We don't have many members who's main passion is spinning, knitting, weaving, or crocheting and it'd be great to hear about a wider variety of skills and crafts. We'd also love to hear from fibre enthusiasts, whether it's wool, alpaca, cotton or even nylon (but not in the weird way, don't even look for it on flickr, it's not nice!). So, if you're interested in any aspect of fibre arts or crafts, from raising alpacas to dyeing cotton threads, we'd really love you to be part of our community to share your photos, give advice, ask for help and share the fun :)
http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/
The site is set to Private to keep out spammers and freeloaders, so you'll have to register, but we check often to approve accounts :)

Dyeing Felt

2011-12-15T09:54:00.000Z

After the Direct Dyeing post on The Felting and Fiber Studio site the other day, Shana asked if the same method could be used to dye already made felt. I'd heard about people dyeing finished felt, but hadn't tried it myself, so I had a go at dyeing a couple of recently made samples. They were both white merino, one with milk protein fibre, and the other with Egyptian cotton top. They turned out well for a first attempt. This is the sample with cotton top after dyeing:

If you'd like to see the full post showing the sample pieces before and after, click here. If you've tried dyeing felt/nuno felt etc, by any method it'd be great to see your results :)

Silk Throwster's Waste

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000Z

Silk Throwster's waste is one of my favourite fibres. It's soft and fluffy and fibrey and like nearly all silk products, really shiny. It can be very expensive too, and you don't get much for your money. 'Raw' silk throwster's waste, however, is very inexpensive. Many people are put off buying it because it has to be de-gummed and dyed, two things which can seem daunting, especially if you don't have much room.
It really isn't very difficult at all, and you don't need any fancy equipment or hard to find products.
If you'd like to know how to go from this:

To this:

Please visit the Felting and Fiber Studio site, for the degumming tutorial and the tutorial for direct dyeing.
Both tutorials have lots of photos and easy to use tables for degumming or dyeing small amounts of fibre.
The direct dyeing method can be used for both silk and wool/other animal fibres and is particularly useful for those of us who dye small amounts, or use small amounts of many colours.

Plastic Fibre

2011-12-01T11:38:00.000Z

This is my finished twisted plastic piece for the Felting and Fiber Studio quarterly Studio Challenge. The twists are made from a blend of merino and plastic fibre made from recycled plastic bottles. The plastic fibre feels really fluffy and 'bouncy', it blends with the merino quite well. I've used it a few times before and it's great for creating 'spongy' effects. The base is 3 layers of merino, and the twists were layed on top so that the tips went over the edge of the base . The finished piece is nice and thick, but doesn't feel heavy, and it's really soft.

Studio Challenge

2011-11-28T09:43:00.000Z

Every quarter we'll be announcing a Studio Challenge on the Felting and Fiber Studio. The challenge this quarter is based on the theme of 'Twists, Twirls and Spirals'. It's only a short one until the end of the year, but if you'd like to join in, have a look at the new post that describes how you can join in.
I'm still working on one of mine...I plan to try more than one, but here's the plastic fibre and merino blends I made and the twists I made out of them:

I hope you'll come over to the Studio and join in :)

Exciting News!!

2011-11-21T09:54:00.000Z

What does the World's worst blogger need? Yep, another blog :)

A few of us have started a new venture together. My friends Karen, Ruth, Ann and myself have got together over the last couple of months and put together a website/blog focusing on felting and fibre art. We wanted somewhere where we could work together and offer support and encouragement and also share our combined love and knowledge of felting and fibre with people across the world.

We've spent the past few weeks adding content to the website, information and photos about wool, animal fibres, other fibres used in felting, information about mixed media, sewing and surface design, and also tutorials. We'll be updating the content as we go along, and adding more info and tutorials and we'll be blogging (regularly!) about what we're working on and interesting things in the felting and fibre arts world.

We'll also be having studio challenges based around a theme, something to make us think and try new things, and hopefully others will join in aswell and share their work.... we have a flickr group too. Those are just for fun, but we'll also be doing giveaways and prizes.

It'd be great if you'd stop by and take a look, and I hope you enjoy the site :)

The Felting and Fiber Studio

Alpaca part 1

2011-08-13T13:59:00.002+01:00

I Love Alpaca fibre :)

It is so soft, silky and shiny and great for wet felting. A few months ago I decided to do a little experimenting to see how well alpaca would felt with just one and two very thin layers-the plan being that I would use the info for making a scarf.

I already had some Huacaya fleece that I bought a couple of years ago, so after spreading a huge sheet on my floor, I sat down and separated a huge pile of locks.

After separating the locks, I picked out any large pieces of vegetable matter, then combed the locks. I did this by carefully holding onto one end of the lock, then dragging it slowly through the teeth of a hand carder a few times. Then, holding the combed end, I dragged the other end through. It does take a bit of time doing this and the hand carder had to be cleaned a few times to get rid of tangled fibre and vm, but the end result is a huge pile of soft, fluffy locks with all the fibres running in the same direction. This might not be important for some felting projects, but for cobweb felt for example, it really helps to achieve the wanted effect.

Some individual locks and a couple of locks after combing...I had to put the combed locks on a bright magenta background to get them to show up :)

These weren't particularly 'controlled' experiments, I didn't take notes on shrinkage etc, it was purely to see how the alpaca would hold together, how it looked and how it would feel. I'll do all the calculations when I decide which alpaca and how many layers to use.
The one layer alpaca worked better than I expected. It's fairly obvious from the photo where the rows overlapped, but it held together very well, and the effect of the crimp and curl of the felted locks was really nice.

Close up:

Held at the window:

The two layer sample felted much more evenly and the overlapping wasn't as obvious. It felt less delicate than the one layer sample, but had as much 'drape' and felt even softer. The characteristics of the crimp and curl wasn't lost either.

Close up:

Held at the window:

I'll be trying the same thing with Suri Alpaca, I don't think I'll get to it until after Summer, and it'll probably take even longer before I blog about it, but I will do eventually :)

Notebook Cover

2011-07-31T11:45:00.001+01:00

Sorry! I'm a terrible blogger, I know :(

I really meant to do an entry all about Alpaca in April after I'd spent a few days separating locks of Huacaya and Suri alpaca. But, I got sidetracked with other things and then it was Summer. I find the heat and humidity impossible to felt in, and my wool tops become staticy making it a nightmare to lay anything out. We had about a week of lovely cool weather recently though, so I took a chance and made myself a new felt notebook cover.

I wanted something colourful, so I used a rainbow mixture of bright blended merino:

I'm so used to using lots of 'extras' in my felt that it looked a bit 'flat', so I added some silk, ramie and bamboo tops, some silk scarf scraps, pieces of organza and cotton gauze, silk throwster's waste, a few locks of Bluefaced Leicester and some silk noil and a silk carrier rod:

I think I made my strips of merino a bit too narrow because the colours went a bit 'muddy' as they shrank together, but the other fibres lifted it.

It probably took me longer to decide which part to use as the front than it did to sew it :) but I finally made my mind up and made a simple notebook cover:

I have a set on flickr showing how to make a simple notebook cover and if, like me, you always forget how to start off with blanket stitch, or even if you've never tried it, I have a set for that too :)

*** I'm sorry, but Blogger's new way to really annoy me is by not allowing me to comment. I really hate not being able to acknowledge that people have left comments, but I do really appreciate everyone reading the posts and commenting, and I do read them all.

White felt lampshade cover

2011-03-26T12:36:00.001Z

I've been promising Heather for ages that I'd get round to making a white felt lampshade cover after she shared hers, and I did make the felt about a week ago, but I only got around to sewing it the other day. I handspun some thin white yarn to hem the top and sew the seam, but I left the natural edge along the bottom.

I'm wishing I placed some locks over the edge now.

The bottom is a thin layer of 18.5 mic natural white merino, then there's a thin layer of 23 mic natural white merino. The 3rd layer is lots of different natural coloured locks and curls-Mohair, Wensleydale, Angora, Teeswater, Bluefaced Leicester, and some wool nepps too. The top thin layer has natural Merino, Devon, Romney and Texel tops, topped with silk, ramie, bamboo, Teeswater, Mohair, soya bean fibre and silk noil. There's a few bits of vegetable matter in there too :)

Buttons!

2011-03-01T18:26:00.000Z

....and a few brooches and embellishments :)

When I was searching for the perfect button for one of my texture-felt bags, I realised my stash of Fimo buttons and embellishments was practically non existent ... not counting the far too huge stockpile of 'rejects' I have (I will find a use for them one day!).

So, I decided to get all my fimo 'paraphernalia' out and make a huge mess in the kitchen making vast amounts of all things polymer. I wasn't even sure my fimo would be good, since I hadn't used it for 2 or 3 years, or that I'd remember how to do it, but it was fine, even previously conditioned clay I'd wrapped up was as good as the day I'd left it, and I had no problem remembering what to do. Though I can't for the life of me remember where my polyblade is :)

A few days on, and I have a growing collection of buttons, embellishments, brooches and pendants. Here are a few of them, there are more on my flickr page :)

Coin Purse Tutorial

2011-02-15T11:41:00.001Z

I've been busy making notebook covers and matching (or contrasting!) purses for gifts this week.

Half way through sewing one of the purses, I found myself wishing I'd worked out a long time ago, how to do a zippered pocket. So before I started sewing up the second purse, I got my camera out and took photos of all the stages to make a tutorial. I wasn't too sure how to describe the pieces, so I hope the photos speak for themselves.

Here is the tutorial for making a coin purse with an inside zippered pocket: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedster01/sets/72157626049445520/

Texture felt bag...update

2011-02-14T22:36:00.000Z

I've added a loop and button fastening to my small texture felt bag. I hand spun some thick yarn in the same colours as the bag, using merino and some 'fancy fibres', then I plyed it and felted it by wetting, soaping and rubbing.

When it was dry, I chose the part I wanted to use then positioned it on the bag and fixed it in place by sewing with regular thread. I then covered the sewing with a piece of felt and blanket stitched it into place. The button is one I hand made from fimo a while ago.

Felt Bags

2011-02-05T11:48:00.000Z

About a year ago, I tried making a felted bag using the Textured Felt method and a bubblewrap resist. I really loved the results:

But I couldn't think of how to attach a strap to it without losing the fancy fibre tassles I'd felted into the sides, so it's been lying neglected in a box for a while. I finally gave in, and recently I snipped the tassles off and attached a strap:

I made a larger bag using the same method a few weeks ago. I haven't attached a strap yet, because I'm hoping to make a felted one, I might even try using the same method, though the thought of trying to sew 2 very long straight lines is a bit daunting :)

I took lots of photos while I was making it, and have added a picture tutorial with descriptions to flickr. The sewing does take a while, but it's a good excuse to sit down with a hot drink and a film :)

More Lamp Shade Covers

2011-01-09T13:20:00.002Z

I recently bought myself a set of 4 table lamps. After making the felted lampshade cover for my ceiling light, they looked a bit plain, so I decided to make covers for those too. The first one I made was another felted one. This turned out a little thicker than the green because of the silk top and silk noil I added, but I still like it.

I've only finished another two so far, a blue and a brown. I did these a little differently, and used fabric to cover them instead. I bought some remnants a while back, and used one to make a book cover. Sew-Fantastic on flickr told me that it was a Vera Bradley fabric. It turned out to be a misprinted 'seconds' of her Peacock fabric, but looking through flickr, I realised I'd bought at least 3 different Vera Bradley fabrics and my 2 favourite were perfect for lampshade covers.

Now I just have to find time to do the white felt piece for the last lamp shade :)

Felt Lamp Shade

2010-12-11T21:04:00.001Z

Hello :)

Sorry I haven't posted recently, I just didn't have the time for felting for a while and then lacked inspiration and motivation.

I spent ages recently trying to find some nice lamp shades, but wasn't impressed with any I saw. So I just ended up buying some very plain ones. I love the way the vessel I made for my girlfriend looks when there's a tealight inside, so I decided to try to make my own shades with felt and hoped they'd look as good.

I made a piece of felt by laying out two fine layers of merino, then a fine layer of curly wools and locks (angora, wensleydale, mohair, bluefaced leicester) then a top layer of fine merino and finished off with silks, ramie and bamboo.

I made a template from the lampshade I'd bought and wanted to cover, and cut out the shape I needed from my felt. I blanket stitched around the edges, then sewed the two seems together. It fits snuggly over the top of the shade, and looks great when the light is shining through :)

For a quick guide on how to make one, visit my flickr page

Experimenting

2010-06-10T13:40:00.001+01:00

I'd been meaning to try and work out some ideas I'd had for a while, when this piece by viltalakim inspired me to start experimenting. Using strips of plastic from supermarket carrier-bags as resists, I made this piece of felt by sandwiching the resists between layers of felt and then cutting the top two layers and peeling back to reveal the felt underneath :

I used other fibres such as silk top, silk noil, soya fibre and bamboo on the layers that would show, to get the look I wanted.
Once I'd tried simple wavy cuts, I wanted to try out a few different ones. On this piece, the cuts are (from top to bottom) vertical cuts; diagonal cuts (the felt 'flaps' were then lifted up); thin slices cut off horizontally and the holes stretched; a wavy cut; a mixture of horizontal and vertical and lastly zigzags.

This burgundy piece was made the same way as the first one, but I used a resist on the back aswell, to create a channel for a dowel or similar for hanging.

It took me a while to get round to it, but a couple of days ago I used what I'd learned to make this felt danglie:

It took about 3 hours to lay out the wool tops, silk and plastic strips, and felt it. Then after a bit of a rest, the cutting and shaping took about another hour. Seemed like I'd never finish, but I'm pleased with the results

Placemats, coasters and trivets

2010-06-09T12:59:00.007+01:00

A few months ago, I made a placemat and coaster set from a thick piece of felt that hadn't worked out as I'd wanted it to

I was really pleased with the results, so when I was looking through all my natural coloured wools and wondering what I could make a big piece of felt for, I decided on placemats and coasters, and made two sets:

A few weeks ago, I had my 2nd attemp at using prefelt...the first being the piece that didn't work out which then became a placemat and coasters :)
Learning from the mistakes I'd made last time, I carefully laid out the pattern onto merino tops, then when the felt was made and dried, made a placemat and coaster set for my girlfriend:

I wanted to make a non slip mat, a kind of trivet for small pans, using the liquid rubber or silicone that people use on the soles of felt slippers. I couldn't find it, so thought I'd try this non slip rubber mat instead

It works really well. I had planned to machine stitch it on to make sure it's secure, but it wouldn't go through the machine :) It feels secure with blanket stitch, though.

I have a photo tutorial on flickr for how to do blanket stitch if anyone is interested

Clickable Photos

2010-05-03T13:10:00.000+01:00

For some reason, my photos won't go to a large version when they are clicked on anymore. I've looked all through the Dashboard and settings and can't find what's gone wrong or what I can do to change this. I always use 'medium' for the picture size, so tried 'large' for my last post, but that made no difference. It seems to lose half the point of having a blog if the pictures can't be seen in detail. If anyone can help me, I'd be really grateful, thanks.
All the photos on my blog are on my flickr photostream and can be seen large and in detail on there.

Other felting fibres

2010-04-20T12:39:00.015+01:00

I've been trying out some of my 'other' felting fibres recently, making reference samples of how they look when used a few different ways on top of merino wool tops.

For this one, I used Soya bean staple fibre, a very short and crimpy fibre. The first row is a blend of merino and carded soya bean fibre. The second row is fluffed up soya fibre layed on the top of the merino, and the third row is some of the crimpy bits, separated and layed on top of the merino.

I used black viscose top for this sample. The first row is a blend of viscose and merino, the second row is fluffed up viscose layed on top of the merino and the third row is fine wispy viscose tops layed on top of the merino.

This sample tries out carded silk carrier rods. The top row is a blend of the carrier rod 'fluff' and merino, and the bottom row is fluffy wispy bits layed out on top of the merino base.

All the different fibres added interesting texture and shininess to the felt, and the viscose made the felt feel very strong without being too stiff.

New flickr group

There's a new flickr group called Fabric and Fibre Tips and Tutorials.

Hopefully this will be a great place to find info on a variety of things, from how to wash fleeces, dyeing wool and fibres, how to sew button holes and blanket stitch, to tutorials on how to make felted hats and slippers, making fabric bookmarks and postcards or which fabrics work well for machine felting or nuno felting etc.

Come and join and add your photos or post a discussion topic linking to your tips and tutorials on your blog or website.

I added my tutorial on How to make a wet felted vessel using a 3d resist

Spinning with a Drop Spindle

2010-03-02T12:26:00.004Z

I'm working on a project at the moment with the intention of using up spare bits of yarn I've made, but I ended up having to spin up some more. I don't have any particular colour theme or look in mind, so just made some random multicoloured.

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, and mainly just spin up what yarn I need, but I often see flickr comments from people who'd love to give it a go, so I thought I would do a picture tutorial for how to use a drop spindle for spinning simple yarn if anyone is interested. You don't need any fancy equipment, you don't even need to buy a spindle, a simple one can be made using a cd or plastic cd spacer.

Some other Felting Photo Tutorials I've made:

How to make Textured Felt

Wet Felting from start to finish

Making a Wet Felted vessel using a 3D resist

Making a Wet Felted case using a flat resist

More Vessels

2010-02-13T15:42:00.007Z

Just before Christmas I made a load of vessels in an attempt at making the perfect one for my girlfriend. I was finally happy with this one: in daylight and at night with a tealight showing the locks and curls.

But this left me with a few 'reject' vessels, which were nice shapes, but hadn't turned out how I wanted. I tried needlefelting a few extra locks on one of them, then ran it through the washer with a normal load and it turned out well. So, that got me thinking about how I could transform some of the others. This next one turned out to have all but a couple of little curls all felted in, so I needlefelted on some crimped or curly wools and locks that I dyed....Angora, Wensleydale and Bluefaced Leicester. Some dyed Falkland, Icelandic, Devon and English 56s were added for texture and to secure:

I did this next one the same way as the blue one, but used raw Wensleydale, Alpaca and Angora, and washed Wensleydale, Kid Mohair, Bluefaced Leicester and a variety of white wool tops (incl. Texel, Devon, Cheviot) Then I put it in the washing machine.

Here it is before washing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedster01/4204169048/

New things

2009-11-24T13:04:00.015Z

Vessels

I recently tried using a bladder from the inside of a ball as a resist for making vessels. I took photos of all the stages to add to my flickr set of Making a Wet Felted Vessel with a 3D Resist. Here are a couple of vessels I made using the bladder.

Silk Carrier Rods

Not so long ago, I bought some silk carrier rods from World of Wool, I'd looked at them when I went to their shop, but they were such ugly, stiff, papery things that I couldn't see how I'd use them. Ruth from the Felting Forum convinced me to give them a go, and since they're only £2.50 for 100g (large bag) , I thought it was worth a try.

If I wasn't impressed by the way they looked, I was less impressed with their smell :)

Luckily after soaking in lukewarm water the smell went, and they were easy to split into layers:

There were some scruffly, straggly bits that came off, but I saved these bits up and when they were dry, I pulled them apart and carded them.

A couple of weeks ago, I dyed the silk rods that I'd separated:

I used a few pieces on projects, but wanted to see how they looked individually, to get a better idea of how usefull they'll be. So I ironed a few pieces to flatten them, then layed them on some black merino.

I was pleasantly surprised by the results, I never expected them to turn out quite so shiny, they really look metallic, like crinkled coloured foil, and were very hard to photograph because of that. I have a few more before felting and close up photos on flickr

Sorry about random gaps between text and photos, or no gaps between text and photos, the stupid site has a mind of its own.

Everybody's doing it!

2009-10-01T11:04:00.005+01:00

I think I can safely say that the Textured Felt technique is a big hit! I really liked how my second piece turned out, using mainly blue and green fibres:

This is a close up of the texture:

Unfortunately, the link I posted to fibrefrolic's blog which details the technique isn't working, but I made a photo set on flickr describing how I made the blue piece.

Lots of people have given it a go with loads of great results, Judelicious created a nice bright piece with merino and silk, and this piece made by feltfinland has great colours and textures.

To see more fantastic textured felt pieces, have a look at the post about it on the felting forum, my favourite so far is the turquoise piece that Tess made.

If anyone else has tried it, it'd be great to see your results :)

Textured Felt

2009-09-20T18:20:00.019+01:00

I stumbled across an entry recently on fibrefrolics' blog, about a really easy technique for making textured felt, using only sewing and the washing machine. I love textured felt and experimenting, and any technique that eliminates rubbing and rolling sounds good to me, so I had to give it a go :)

I only had a white wash planned, so I layed out a piece with all white fibres. I used layers of natural merino tops, English 56's and combed lambswool. Extra fibres on the top were Bamboo top and washed Bluefaced Leicester, all from World of Wool. The top layer was Polwarth and there was also some Angora locks added to the top, both from Karen's Felt Works. I also added some Alpaca and Kid Mohair.

This is what it looked like after sewing, before I put it in the washing machine:

And, this is what it looked like when it was almost dry:

There are a few more photos on my flickr photostream including photos of it just after washing and a close up.

If anyone's ever wondered whether commercial pre-felt is worth buying, I also have some photos on flickr of a few practice samples of that-a couple of different thicknesses and how it works for nuno felting.

Greek Wildfire Fundraiser

2009-09-09T14:37:00.003+01:00

Most of us have seen reports on the news in the past few weeks about the terrible Greek wildfires. A website has been set up recently to help raise money for the reforestation of areas devastated by the fires. The project is called ART FOR TREES and the organisers are asking for donations of artwork to be exhibited and sold to help raise funds for the project. If you can help in any way, no matter how small, have a look at the website http://attikasos.blogspot.com/ for updates.
The address for sending donations is:
ART FOR TREES, c/o Manya Maratou, box 66, Marathon, 19007, Attiki, Greece
They ask that donations are sent by November.

Anyone who took part in or heard about the Australian Bushfire fundraiser will remember how succesful that was with all the great donations, and the hard work of Karen who organised the sale. For anyone who missed it, there are photos of the donations on felting forum's blog which raised AU$1558.50

New flickr Group

2009-08-17T16:47:00.002+01:00

I started a new group on flickr recently for Handmade Book Covers. We've already got 8 members and lots of great photos of a variety of book covers. If you're on flickr and have made your own cover for any type of book, come and join us and share the photos of your creations, or just drop by to have a look.
And feel free to recommend the group to any of your friends or contacts :)
http://www.flickr.com/groups/handmadebookcovers/

Recycling felt pieces

2009-07-30T19:53:00.010+01:00

I like to try lots of different fibres and experiment a bit, so I often end up with quite a few sample pieces or pieces of felt where I like the technique, but don't think the colours worked.
A while ago I made a collage from some of the sample pieces and I really liked it. So when I realised I had quite a lot of sample pieces again, I thought I'd make another collage and this time combine it with my latest obsession-notebook covers.

This is the finished collage piece:

And this is the Notebook cover I made from it:

I measured, and cut out a piece of craft felt to the size I needed before sewing on the felt pieces with 'invisible' thread (like thin nylon beading thread). I also added some handmade yarn scraps. I had intended finishing it off with blanket stitch around the edges, but all the sewing shrank it a little.

Notebooks and 'Fancy' knitting yarns.

2009-07-26T15:09:00.012+01:00

My old computer died a few weeks ago, and we had a heatwave which made it far too hot to felt much, so I spent some time making some small notebook covers.

I wanted to try something a little different for a large notebook cover, so I had a look through my felting samples and found a piece of felt I tried not so long ago using fancy knitting yarns, like the fancy/funky fibres used for embellishing. I measured my notebook, added on some width for flaps, then extra for shrinkage then layed out my piece. It looked great when It was finished:

But for some reason, it had shrunk quite a lot widthways. So, I added a couple of inches to each side of the template and tried again:

It still wasn't big enough. I don't know if it's something to do with the yarns, or maybe the two thin top layers that the fibres are trapped between, are thicker than one usual one, but for some reason, these were shrinking completely differently to all the others I made recently. So, I taped some extra paper to my already huge piece I use for templates, and added even more to the width. This time it worked!

Now I can get on with sewing it into a book cover, and I've finally found a use for the 50 or so balls of yarn and all the packs of funky fibres I bought a couple of years ago!!

There are photos of some of the yarns I used, and the pieces before felting on flickr

** This is the notebook I made from the blue piece:

Where do your ideas come from?

2009-06-15T09:28:00.007+01:00

Do you always know where your ideas came from? Or sometimes do you look at your work and wonder what gave you the idea?
I've just finished a flat needle felted piece I made for the Felting Forum's Monthly Challenge, using only natural fibres. I followed the first design I thought of, I just wanted something that was simple, but would look great with all the tones and textures of different animal fibres, so I just drew a few circles and wavy lines:

I actually stuck to my idea for once too:

But when the pattern started to build up and fill in, it started to remind me of paintings I'd seen by Pintupi artists from Australia. So, I called the piece 'Pintupi' to acknowledge the influence and lasting impression those paintings must have made on me.

That's what got me thinking about where ideas come from, and I remembered a short clip from a Derren Brown TV programme where he turned the tables on advertisers to influence their ideas.

'Pintupi' was made using 37 different animal fibres (for a full list see the photo on flickr), some I'd bought myself, some were from fibre swaps, and some lovely handwashed and handcarded batts in gorgeous shades and tones from my friend Karen.

Felted Foliage

2009-06-08T20:03:00.006+01:00

I had an idea a few weeks ago for making a foliage picture with felt. I was having a look through my tub of handmade yarn scraps, and noticed how good they looked where some cut plied ones were separating. I made some patchy green prefelt to cut up for the background, made some twists with merino/silk and merino/bamboo, and coiled some thin merino strands around paintbrushes.

It took SO long to lay out, I was glad when I'd finished:

Felting it wasn't easy as it was so big, I had to lay a shower curtain down on the kitchen floor, and piece together bubblewrap and netting. It was looking good after rubbing and rolling though.

I finished the felting by rubbing on bubblewrap, bit by bit, in 'rows' across the felt, then I rotated it and did the same thing. I was a bit disappointed with the end result, I'd hoped it'd turn out more like the halfway stage, and all the prefelt, twists and yarns I'd added had made it really thick. It's growing on me now, though :)

I had some prefelt and yarns leftover, so I made a few more twists, and tried another version on a blue background, this is a cropped version of it:

Felt Cases

2009-05-14T19:13:00.006+01:00

The May challenge on the felting forum is 'Practical Felting- Create something with a useful purpose'. My new camera needs a case, so I thought I'd have a go at making one.
After another fruitless search of the internet for a tutorial, I decided to work it out for myself (apparently, maths can be used for other things besides working out how much fibre I need to order and how much it'll cost!)
So, after lots of measuring, re-measuring, dividing and multiplying, I ended up with.... 2 foam rectangles as resists for a camera case and ipod case.
I won't pretend I ended up with 2 perfect cases after my first try, but they turned out okay and I found they are easy to adapt.

I re-did the camera case a couple of days later with 4 thin layers, and got the size and thickness I wanted.

If you'd like to try making a case with a flat resist, I made a picture set on flickr, here
And if anyone has any tips for making cases- I'd love to hear about them.

I also made a very simple camera case by sewing 3 pieces of felt together yesterday, and made a photo set for this on flickr, too

I must say thankyou to Linda from craft gossip who did a really nice article about me and my felted vessel tutorial :)

And if anyone has any helpful how to's or tutorials they'd like to share, please leave a link in the comments, I'd love to see them :)

Book Review

2009-05-10T22:56:00.009+01:00

I'm fairly new to wet felting and don't really know much beyond laying wool tops in opposite directions and incorporating other fibres into the top layer, so I thought I'd treat myself to a book. I had a look on amazon and decided to get 'Complete Feltmaking by Gillian Harris'. It promised to carefully explain each feltmaking technique in detail with step by step instructions so that no matter how inexperienced you are, it is difficult to go wrong. It covers needlefelting, wet felting, knitting and fulling, and advanced felting techniques. Sounded perfect.

I don't know anything about knitting so don't feel qualified to judge that section's instructions, but I've looked through all the wet felting and needle felting projects, and there are some major problems with this book.
The first wet felting instructions are explained quite well, but after that, instructions are vague... 'make a circle, add a spot, make a polka dot, bunch up some fleece into a round pouch shape' etc, and it doesn't tell you 'how'.
Also, the photos are practically useless, instead of a few photos clearly illustrating the instructions, they give a whole page to a photo of the finished item, then use a cropped version again on almost a whole page, where they could have fit another 4-6 photos. The photos they do have accompanying the stages are 'arty' and blurred and contribute practically nothing.

A typical 4 page layout for a project:

Another thing I found strange, was there was no order to the projects, they went from 'intermediate' to 'beginner' to 'advanced' then back again, randomly. The needle felt section starts with an 'advanced' project.
The oddest thing was incomplete instructions for how to make a bag, which were then repeated 10 pages on, this time without the blurry photos but with one additional step-'make a handle using the instructions from a few pages earlier'. This one extra detail took 4 pages.

After reading this book, I'm non the wiser than I was before reading it, and many of the tips go against other things I've read, like leaving felt on resists/lasts to dry (didn't the felt shrink too much for that?)
It's a shame, because the project ideas look really good.

Nuno Felted Silk Scarf

2009-04-29T08:50:00.006+01:00

I picked up some gorgeous dyed silk scarves a few years ago, and they've been packed in a box ever since. So, I thought I'd have a go at felting one. I picked one out then chose the shades of merino tops to go with it:

It was quite long-38 inches, so I hoped I'd be able to felt it solely by rolling, so that I'd be able to use the technique for larger felted pieces that I don't have enough room for felting the way I usually do. I'd say it felted about 80%, which is okay for felted artwork, but probably not for anything wearable or artwork with textures/added fibres. I finished it off by rubbing on bubblewrap.

Merino side:

silk side:

I started with a reed table runner, then put bubble wrap on top, then the scarf/merino and finally netting, I rolled it up tight, then gave it a lot of rolling-even using my feet. I then unrolled, turned the scarf round 180 degrees, then repeated.
So, if anyone has any tips for making sure it's fully felted by just rolling, I'd be really grateful :)

Pictures of full scarf Here

Lots of new fibres!

2009-04-25T19:51:00.008+01:00

On Thursday I took a trip to Huddersfield to visit World of Wool.
It's a great place and the people are so nice and friendly.
You are personally shown round to look at, touch and smell all the great wools and fibres they have...my favourite was the milk protein fibre- looks, smells and feels gorgeous.
I was quite restrained and just bought a few shades of merino, some oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester and bamboo top
L-R Bamboo top, Black Bamboo top, oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester

We had a second Fibre Swap on the Felting Forum recently, my swap partner was Cytel . I couldn't wait to open my parcel when it arrived today, and had a great time looking at and feeling all the great fibres and fabric samples I received:

The top row is 4 natural Alpaca shades and Alpaca hand dyed with natural dyes in Peru.
The middle row is a greeny merino and silk blend, a hand dyed blue angora and polwarth 50/50 blend, and an earthy coloured hand dyed roving 100% targe top.
The bottom row is: Silk throwster's waste; raw fleece-merino cormo cross; very bright merino tops
I think I'll enjoy using all these :)

Nuno Felting

2009-04-23T19:26:00.007+01:00

A couple of months ago I experimented with nuno felting-using fabrics with wet felting, and enjoyed it a lot.
Here is a set on flickr...most of the early experiments ended up as part of the collage piece in the set

This week I layed out a few more nuno felt pieces, but I've only wet felted 2 so far.
For the first one, I cut up squares from silk scarves that I've tried before, these are very light and felt really well. I added these to a base of 3 layers of turquoise merino, and added a few wisps of merino on top in a couple of places
This is how it looked before felting:

And this is how it looked after:

The second piece was an experiment with scrap pieces, the rolled edges I'd torn from silk scarves, messy scrunched silk, scrap organza and silk sari yarn- all added to merino randomly and topped with wisps of merino.
Before felting:

After felting:

I don't think all the different colours work well on one piece, it looks too busy, but I liked the effects and will use them again but keep the colours simpler.

Wet Felted Vessel

2009-04-19T20:42:00.011+01:00

I made my first wet felted vessel a few days ago, using a 3D resist I'd made from bubblewrap. Just in case anyone else wanted to get covered in wet wool tops and make as much mess as I did, I made a Photo set on flickr

Today I thought I'd try to make a bowl shaped vessel, I know I've got a rubber football bladder somewhere, but couldn't find it, so I filled a plastic bag up with lots of scrunched up plastic bags, then covered it in packing tape for a resist.

I went a bit too far up with the wool tops, so it was a bit of a struggle to get the partly felted vessel off the resist, and it made it a bit loose too

It soon firmed up as I started to finish the felting by rubbing it inside and out on the bubble wrap

And after rinsing in cold and hot water and fulling by rolling it between my hands it was ready to leave to dry. I'm happy with how it turned out, but I thought felting over a 3D resist would be easy and it isn't, it's messy and fiddly and takes forever. I might just have to see if I have better luck with a flat resist.

Hello

2009-04-17T16:03:00.010+01:00

Well, I finally got around to starting a Blog.
Hopefully it will help anyone who, like me, is just starting out learning about felt and experimenting with it.
And I can check back anytime I forget how I did something :)

Before I started wet felting, I searched the internet for complete 'How to' instructions, but I couldn't find anything detailed with lots of pictures and easy to understand for a complete novice like me who had no idea at all where to start.
So, using these instructions from Devon Woollies, and adding a few bits of info I'd picked up from my searches ....using bubble wrap and a bamboo blind (okay, it was 4ft bamboo garden fencing, but it was all I had, and I was eager to start!) I tried my first wet felted piece (below).

A couple of members on the felting forum recently said they'd like to try wet felting, and that got me thinking again. So I made a photo set of How to wet felt...right from pulling off the wool top, to rinsing the finished piece.

Here's the set on flickr, and I hope it's useful for anyone who hasn't tried it yet and wants to.