A Bit Of Colour

I thought I'd do some colourful pieces this week. The last time I ordered from World of Wool, I got some dyed Shetland wool tops, and some dyed 18.5 mic Merino. I used the dyed Shetland tops for this first piece, and a variety of cellulose fibres that I dyed a while ago, using rosiepink's tutorial. I think I used Bamboo, Banana, Ramie, Flax, Hemp and Viscose, and there are a few wisps of soybean top too.

I didn't add the fibres in any particular way, just lay the tops out and added more until the spaces were filled in. Overlapping in some places.

I like this close up, I like the way the fibres appear to be just sitting on top of the wool, which my girlfriend thinks looks like grass.

I wanted to try out some of the 18.5 mic merino, and some crimped nylon before I made a large scarf. I won't be using these colours together, but thought it would help to see them better.

The way the thinner areas of fibre contour the ripples of the felt reminds me of felting with those stringy produce bags that oranges and onions often come in.

I thought this was an unusual contrast, the denser matte nylon around the shiny Merino givess the Merino a synthetic look.

A close up of some of the crimped fibre:

I really liked the way this turned out, I even like the two colours together :)

Threads and Yarns

Around this time last year I was still doing the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge. I struggled with it, and didn't always enjoy it, but I did like what I produced when I used some felt offcuts from a piece I'd made with natural wools for placemats and coasters. I used my own handspun thread to sew the stitches. This is one I made using chain stitch, and this is one using cretan stitch. I hadn't used my threads in a while, but recently I've been inspired by my flickr-friend, Marchi Wierson, a sculptural fibre artist who uses a variety of techniques in her work, such as wet felting and crochet, and loves working with natural wools and fibres. Her recent vessel commission and some gorgeous natural fibre yarns had me rummaging through my wools and fibres and getting my spindles out to spin more thread and yarn. I decided to use three shades of Shetland Wool.

I pulled off some of the tops from each shade:

Then I looked through my embellishment fibres for some I thought would make a nice match. I chose Soybean top, viscose top and flax.

I added some of each fibre to the Shetland tops:

Then I blended them by hand:

I got a couple of my spindles out, this is one I made and painted a few years ago:

I made a small amount of thread, though even a small amount of wool and fibres goes a long way when spinning thread. This is it wound around the spindle.

Then I blended up some more Shetland and fibres and spun a thicker yarn. I will probably use the yarn in a wet felting project, though I have used them for needlefelting before.

Do have a look at Marchi's photostream if you have time, her work is amazing and inspiring :)