Testing the Limits of Fibres

I was tidying away some felt recently and remembered that I'd planned to make some felt pieces like the textured nuno pieces I made, but with different fibres instead of fabric. I've tried 'piling on' embellishment fibres in the hope of getting a fluffy effect or loosely attached/3D look a few times, but apart from a really slippy/slinky feeling acrylic fibre, and some weird fibre/wool combos (Suffolk wool and banana fibre springs to mind) they've all just stayed put and attached well. Since I mostly use Merino for 'everyday' pieces, I wanted to see how a couple of layers of different fibres attached, and also what effect I'd get from some hard fulling.

I laid out a couple of pieces the same way, but different sizes. I laid out two layers of dyed viscose fibre, then 4 fine layers of 23 mic Merino. I felted and fulled the first piece, then got my bead board out to full it more. I fulled until it was quite firm, but not stiff/rigid:

I got the texture I expected:

I didn't expect so much migration, probably because the soft/fine pieces I've fulled really hard with fibres before were using white 18.5mic Merino, and I used less fibre, I thought it'd be less obvious this time:

I changed my plans when I got to the felted stage of the first piece, it looked and felt so nice. So, I decided I would just felt the next piece 'normally'. Even if I hadn't already decided that, I don't think I could have 'ruined' this piece by fulling it lots:

The colours and the sheen are just gorgeous, so is the softness and drap, even though it's only a small sample:

Those ridges/crinkles are because I squeezed it in a towel, then hung on the line to dry! If you look at the blue parts you might see a crease along the edge too, it's such a light piece, the pegs weighed it down and bent it. Here's a close up:

You can see the differences in sheen and texture when the pieces are next to each other:

This is the soft piece on the template I used, it started out just a bit bigger than the small box it's on top of:

And the small piece started out the size of the largest outline on the template:

And yep, those are the same template!

I made a few more fibre samples. I thought I'd use the same template for all of them to do comparisons. In the end, I only did a 'normal' sample and a 'fulled hard' sample of Trilobal Nylon for a direct comparison. Though thinking about it, for a 'proper' comparison, I should really have used the same colours! Each sample has two layers of the fibre, and 4 thin layers of 23 mic Merino. This is the Trilobal Nylon sample which I felted and fulled in the way I usually do:

Here's a close up of the ripples/texture:

This is the Trilobal nylon sample I made and fulled hard:

The texture was interesting, especially where I used different colours for each fibre layer:

This next one is Soy top which I dyed, the tops all look nice, shiny, metallic shades, but for some reason, they now look a bit like wet tissue. Maybe two layers dulls the sheen?

The silver end looked quite nice:

My favourite piece out of these was the Nylon Staple sample. It had a really nice, thick texture:

You can see it a bit more on an angle:

At first I was a bit disappointed with all the migration, because it covered some areas:

But, then I noticed there was something quite regular, almost geometric about the migration:

It can always be disguised by using a matching colour, or made a feature of by using a complementary colour. Here is a photo of the nylon and soy pieces next to each other:

And, for reference, the bigger Trilobal Nylon sample on the template I used:

So, you can see, you don't need to cautiously anchor down a few strands of fibre with wisps of wool! I used quite a lot of fibre on each sample. The nylon staple is one which intrigues me the most because I love texture and it has me thinking of ways to use it, but the Viscose top is gorgeous, so vibrant and shiny!

If you're curious about using embellishment fibres in wet felting, but don't know where to start, have a look at the info page for my e-book, The Right Fibre: https://feltbyzed.blogspot.co.uk/p/the-right-fibre.html

More New Wool

I got some wool tops listed as 'Arctic Fox', no other info about what the wool breed might be, just that it is 25 micron. It feels really soft, a lot like Bluefaced Leicester, and it felted really nicely too:

Though it's soft and felts like a fine wool, it does have some wiry bits:

I tried a variety of fibres it, along the top is Soy top, below that is black Bamboo top (L) and Milk Protein (R), then some Hemp fibre, and at the bottom is Viscose top:

Interestingly it made the soy look like hemp or flax, which it only usually does with a coarser or curlier wool:

This is a closer picture of the Bamboo and Milk:

Hemp and Viscose:

Another wool I tried was Skudden or Skudde. Zara found some info on it in English, and there's a Facebook group with cute lambs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Skudden It isn't in the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, but apparently it is in the Northern European short-tailed family. I used this straight off the batt without carding it first, so it's a bit uneven:

It felted immediately, it was like it was felted as soon as it was all wet and soapy. It is weirdly hairy though. I was using new netting and thought frayed fibres had come off and got all over the felt. This photo is actually in focus, but the hairiness makes it look like it isn't. I used black nylon tops, which are actually very black:

This is a close up of the hairy corner:

Close up of the left side:

Further up, it looks like diagrams of cell walls:

It's different to any other wool  I have, it's unusual, but I like it.

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.

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 :)

Catch Up

Sorry for not posting anything for a while. I think I've just had too many things going on at once, and I don't know about you, but when I've got so many things I need to do that I don't know where to start, I usually end up putting them off longer! One of the main things I've been working on is getting through my huge pile of WIPs.

As part of my other fabrics and fibres project, I had lots of unfinished pieces waiting to be made into things...unfinished camera pouches, pencil cases, iPod cases, mirror cases, purses, glasses cases... not to mention lots of pieces of felt waiting to be cut and pinned and sewn to add to the pile :)

They are mostly finished now, and one of the biggest tasks was photographing them all. For a while I just had 2 cloths for photographing-a black piece and some natural calico, but after struggling to get a few photos right, my girlfriend suggested using neutral colours like a brown or grey, so it ended up being a mammoth task taking photographs of about 30 felt pieces on 4 different backgrounds, not to mention the fun of going through and deleting all but the best. At least now that Summer is over, the light is better and getting good shots is far easier :)

I even had time to make some felt just for fun recently, which was really nice. I probably went a bit over the top with all the different fibres I blended with the wool and all the different fabric and fibre embellishments I piled on the top, but it was nice to make something that wasn't controlled or being made with anything in mind for a change :)

Have you been working on anything just for fun lately?