New Year, Old Stuff

I have one more pice that I made just before Christmas that I haven't done anything with yet. I planned it so that the red to purple rainbow stripes in the centre would fit around an A5 notebook, and the stripes at the ends would be the flaps inside. But it didn't shrink enough for that. And isn't quite long enough to fit on an A5 ringbinder.

This is the back:

After the craft fair I made a few more camera cases, it was nice to sit and sew without any pressure of having to get it done by a certain time. These are from a grey merino and grey/pink synthetic fabric nuno piece I made a while ago. Sorry about the odd photos, there was a weird blue light here today.

These are slightly bigger and made from burgundy merino and a kind of tulle synthetic fabric nuno.

I haven't had chance to do much at all lately, I thought I'd have to file my tax returns soon, so have been frantically listing, categorising and printing all week. It turns out the 31st Jan deadline is for the 2012-2013 tax year, which I filed in April last year. I didn't feel silly about that when I phoned up trying to file tax returns 3 months early :)
You might remember a post on the Felting and Fiber Studio site from last year about expanding the felting and fiber community. I just wanted to remind everyone that we are still interested in having guest posts, articles, features etc if anyone would like to contribute to the site? If you'd like an idea of some of the posts others have contributed, hover over  'Community' on the menu bar and you will see the various categories. It doesn't have to be original, it can be something you've used on your own site, as long as it is about felt, fabric, wool or fibres or anything related like threads, tools, farming, production, supplies, selling etc we'd love to include it :)  Use the Contact Form at the top of the site or PM us on the forum.

I thought I'd add a supermacro of locks, just because :)

Ethical Wool and Animal Fibre

If you're interested in knowing exactly where your wool and animal fibres come from and that they have been treated well, have a look at The Felting and Fiber Studio site today. We meet Amanda from Newmoor Barn in Devon who has a herd of Angora goats and sources different breeds of locally reared wool and animal fibres.

If you have a business which keeps the felting, fabric and fibre community in supplies and would like to tell us all about it, come over to the Studio site, we have a Contact Us page now. If you'd like to contribute articles too, we'd love to hear from you, you can read all about it here.

Texture

I've been working on a project about using 'other' fibres in felting and noticed that 'texture' has been a common theme lately. I thought I'd post a collection of photos showing different textures from wet felted pieces I've made.

This is a green organza used as a base:

This is the top, strips of organza over blocks of coloured Merino:

This is another organza base, a slightly stiffer gold:

This is a piece of cerise organza:

This is a close up of silk in textured nuno felting:

This is a blue-green piece of textured felt, made with lots of layers and inclusions and felted mostly in the washing machine:

And lastly, this is a piece of texture felt using reds, pinks, oranges and yellow shades:

Do you have any photos of textural felt? How do you like to create it? Do you like to add to your felt to create texture with stitch or other fabrics and fibres? I'd love to see photos of your work :)



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.