Pods and cords

We've been exploring resists at the Well Being centre recently, and one of the group said she'd really like to make a round vessel, so I thought we'd follow rosiepink's vessel tutorial. It turned out there was only 2 of us there early enough to have a go, so we did it again this week, but this is mine:

Here's the other side:

I've been looking for 'smoothing tools' for vessels for years, like Lyn's suggestions of a baby's rattle or laundry liquid dispenser, I keep checking the baby section, and dog toy section, even the kitchen section for a ladel, but still haven't found one! I did buy some foam for resists though and  I thought I'd try it out and make a new birdpod. I remembered those coconut ones, and tried to do a similar shape. It didn't get it quite right, but using lots of coarse wools did give it a hairy coconut look, though:

I need to make a cord for it to hang it up. Usually, I make cords from offcuts or make some handspun yarn and felt that, but I had an idea for some garden ornaments and thought I'd give it a go using a bamboo mat. I can't remember which wool I used, I think it was something from Wollknoll labelled just 'Scottish grey'. I had a hard time getting photos of all my things, it went too dark yesterday, so this morning I took them into the garden and tried them in a few places, when I put the first cord down on the paving stones it camouflaged itself, even the pattern seems to match!

That was just the test piece for the idea I wanted to try. The only trouble was, I needed a larger mat than a placemat. I looked at my living room blinds, just hanging there with a huge roll of unused bamboo sat at the bottom. I unrolled it and there must have been two feet of spare blind, so a few snips and a few tied ends later, I had a shorter window blind and a new rolling mat! This cord hasn't completely dried yet, but I know I need to make the next one a bit thinner, and I think that will help it be firmer too, but it turned out a lot better than I expected:

Vessel and Pod

I don't think I've ever used a flat resist for a vessel like this before. The idea was to make it as an example of using resists to take to the felting class at the well-being centre, but before I'd even finished the layout, I knew it'd be too much for us to do in a couple of hours. I used lots of the Gotland locks from Zara, and decided to work inside out, so I laid these on the resist first. I used a couple of layers of Gotland fleece, then some cheaper 'Scottish Grey' I'd bought from wollknoll.  Between the Gotland and Scottish fleece I added some more Gotland locks around the top. There is a bit of a ridge inside, but I thought it turned out really well:

The other side:

Here's a couple of close ups of the locks around the top:

I used lots of different ones:

A closer look at the bottom, the locks felted in really nicely but still kept lots of character:

When we did use resists at the well being centre, they didn't quite turn out as planned. Because I had 'vessels' in mind and got out all the natural wools, I wasn't thinking properly, so cut a resist for a glasses case based on using Merino like I usually do, so when thick layers of English 56s, Finnish and Corriedale were used, it barely shrunk and turned into a small sturdy bag! I was running out of time, so only did 3 layers on my bird pod, so it ended up shrinking a lot more widthways and became very tall and narrow! One of the members in the group liked it though so hopefully the blue tits in her garden do, too :)

Flower Shaped Vessel from a Flat Resist.

I didn't realise it has been a month since my last blog post! I always feel bad when I leave it so long, but I try to post on the same days I post on The Felting and Fiber Studio site, and sometimes I'm so tired and my eyes ache so much after that I just don't have the energy or the will. If it wasn't such a faff to sign in and out of different gmail accounts to do it too, I'd be more inclined. And, I'm fairly certain there's only one person (Hi Ali! ) who ever reads it who doesn't read the studio site blogs.

Anyway! ... In case you missed it, Ruth posted the First Quarter Challenge on the Felting and Fiber Studio Site about flat resists, I've used flat resists before, mostly for surface design, simple cases, and a few bags. I have made a few 3D items with flat resists: some bird pods, a few hats, and even a supposed seed pod which looked like the rib cage of a dead animal, but I think I've only tried a vessel once and it was a bit flimsy. So, I thought I'd try a vessel again. I decided on a flower shape, I can't find the actual resist, but it was basically a flower shape:

I used some 27 mic coloured Merino batt I bought from wollknoll and used some silk hankies over the top. This is how it looked from above:

How the underneath looks:

And a kind of side view:

This is where the silk hankie was fine:

And this is where the silk hankie was thicker:

And this is a close up of the batt texture:

If I did it again, I would make the shape more curvy, where the petal shapes met, it was a sharp V shape and the vessel is too thin there, and in some places little holes. This is looking through the vessel opening at a thin patch:

In case you missed it on the studio site, I gave a heads up for my 4th Quarter Challenge which I'll post about around October. Basically, all the challenges this year are on felting techniques, and the theme of mine is 'threads and yarns', so start collecting (all those things you probably never throw away if you're like 95% of fibre artists!) the little snippings of sewing thread:

The annoying frayings and unravellings you get after tearing fabric, like these organza threads:

Any odd or short bits of yarn, handmade, bought or even unpicked knitting:

Plus embroidery thread, string, twine, tassels off the end of scarves and any other bits of thread or yarn you have left over after constructing or deconstructing anything fibre related :)

New things

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.