Interesting Stuff on The Felting and Fiber Studio

We have a brilliant guest post on The Felting and Fiber Studio site this week from Zara Tuulikki Rooke. Zara lives in Sweden and mostly uses Swedish wool breeds in her felting. She's written a guide to some of the wool breeds and has photos and descriptions of the differences when they're felted the same way: http://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2015/11/25/different-types-of-wool-from-a-swedish-felters-perspective/

 We've been running our online Wet Felting for Beginners classes for a while now, and recently decided to keep the class open with continual access to coursework and tutor support, to make it as convenient as possible.

You can read more about it on the Studio site, and there are still a few days to enter the giveaway to win a free class. And if you'd like to read a few testimonials from people who took the class, click on the photo below.

Dyed Wool and Fibres

A few weeks ago, I decided to dye some wool and fibres. I used up quite a lot of my dyed texturey wools when making batts recently, so I wanted to to restock those and thought I'd do a few fibres while i was making a mess. I ended up having to do it over three days, and it made a right mess, but it was worth it in the end :) I bought some white Kent Romney lambswool to try for adding texture, I had a little bit of scoured Falkland fleece left over too so added that:

I've bought commercially dyed silk noil before, but it really isn't good compared to the small amount I dyed once, so I thought I'd give that another go:

I also dyed some Tussah Silk tops - a good tip for anyone wanting to dye small amounts of fibre tops is to separate the amount you want to dye while the tops are dry, and soak them separately, it isn't easy when they're wet!

I used the same shades to dye some Soy top as I had on the Silk, and though they look similar, they soy definitely looks a lot shinier:

Neither of them come close to the colours and shine of the Milk though, but I did do these on a separate day and they weren't the same lot of dyes:

At the last minute I decided I wanted to dye some Gotland, Teeswater and Wensleydale locks. These were all raw, unwashed, so the night before my last lot of dyeing I gave some locks a shampoo and rinse. This is the Gotland:

I do have some more stuff waiting to be photographed, some Bluefaced Leicester wool and locks, soy staple fibre and carded lambswool, I'll add those to my 'supplies' album on flickr when I get good enough light. The last one I've got for now is Trilobal Nylon (sometimes labelled as 'Firestar' and sold at exorbitant prices) cheap nylon tops. The photo hasn't really picked it up, but it has a lot of sparkle and these dyed really well:

 If anyone is interested in dyeing smallish amounts of fibres, I did a small tutorial on it a while ago: http://feltingandfiberstudio.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/direct-dyeing1.pdf  luckily this time, I had my fold out table for a larger work area!  I used acid dyes which are good for protein fibres (animal fibres, soy, milk, silk, and nylon too as it is a synthetic version of silk). I have tried it on bamboo before too and got some nice, pale results, so it's worth trying a sample or two :)   

I did a 'Year End Round Up' post on the Felting and Fiber Studio today, having a look back over things I've made this past year. What did you enjoy making this year? Come and add to our discussion on the forum.

Natural Wools and Fibres

You might have seen my post on the Felting and Fiber Forum last week about a wall hanging I made using natural coloured wool tops from many different wool breeds and some different embellishment fibres. Someone usually asks, so this time I've measured :) It's 30 inches long and 10 inches wide.

This is the bottom end, some of the wools and fibres are: Bluefaced Leicester tops and noil, Humbug Jacob, Black Jacob tops and noil, Lincoln, Gotland, flax, hemp, soy top, milk top and viscose.

This is a close up of the Soy top and Lincoln tops.

And this is Viscose tops on Zwartble with some Ingeo to the side.

As much as I love colours of dyed Merino or the textures of a nuno felted silk or shiny organza, I really love the variation of colours and textures you get with different combinations of natural wools and embellishment fibres. For as long as I've had natural wool tops and embellishment fibres I've been making various experimental pieces of felt with them, some just flat wet-felted, some combined with other techniques for a variety of surface designs or sculptural effects. When I got my recent World of Wool order and a few more breeds to try, I thought I'd also start to make a variety of small panels with the intention of maybe combining them into one large wall hanging some day. This is a panel I made using Manx Loaghtan wool tops and Bamboo staple fibre:

This is an angled photo of the panel I made with Grey Herdick wool tops and Hemp fibre:

I'll post more photos of other panels that I make with different wools and fibres. This last piece is something I made alongside the top stripey piece:

The Winner of the Heidi Feathers giveaway has been announced on the Felting and Fiber Studio site today, so if you entered, go and check if you won!

Bird Pods

A few weeks ago I decided to have a go at felting a bird pod. Ann from The Felting and Fiber Studio had recommended using balloons as a form to keep their shape while drying, and I'd finally got round to ordering some from ebay. The first one I made had 2 layers of natural Grey Merino to start, then I added lots of raw Gotland locks around the edges and added two layers of Gotland roving that Karen had sent me. I added some carded Gotland fleece, banana fibre and a few more locks to the top before felting.

The second bird pod I made had 2 base layers of natural brown Merino, then again some raw Gotland locks, though I used some darker grey and black ones this time. The top 2 layers are dark brown Corriedale wool, with some washed Gotland fleece and bamboo fibre on top for extra interest.

The last bird pod I made was for my girlfriend who really likes natural white wools and fibres. I started this one with two layers of English 56s. The locks I used were Teeswater, Mohair and older Angora goat locks. The Teeswater locks are really long, some of the ones I had were 15 or 16 inches, so I used those across the top to come out at both sides. The top two layers were merino 64s, then for extra texture I added some combed teeswater tops, Angora and Mohair locks, some very crimpy Bluefaced Leicester, and some carded bamboo fibre.