Coppery Felt and Fimo

Do you remember the coppery bronzey felt piece I posted about last month? I cut that up recently and started to make a glasses case and small coin/card purse out of it. I have so many cut out or part made up items at the moment, I think I'll be working on them all year :)  I did actually finish the glasses case though. This is one side of it:

And this is the other side:

I used some gorgeous hand dyed cotton perle 5 from Rainbow Girl on etsy. The variegated colours work perfectly. I also managed to do quite a lot on the purse. I managed to sew it all together already.

I still need to choose the right button, which always takes forever, and sew the buttonhole. I'm glad I got the gorgeous ribbon on the top of the front flap.

I've also been working on a Fimo/polymer clay tutorial the last few weeks. Taking photos has been harder than ever, it's been really dark, stormy and rainy, which is nice, but not good for taking photos. We did get a few really bright sunny days, so I worked on the opposite side of the house to the sun and managed to get a lot done, or so I thought. When I downloaded the photos, what looked good when I set up a shot, didn't look good once hands were in the photo! I thought Monday would be perfect for working outside, it was bright but cloudy, but also really windy, so back indoors. I did get quite a few good photos all in all, including this one, which captures perfectly my attempt to get rid of the huge dent I caused when I released the camera from the tripod without holding it first!

And here's a sneaky peek at one of the other pieces I worked on:

I'm nowhere near finishing it yet, but when I have, I'll put it for sale on etsy, it won't be expensive, but I want to put as much in it as possible, so if anyone has any ideas, suggestions or requests, if it's something I know about, I'll do my best to include it :)

Giveaway

We're having a Giveaway over on the Felting and Fiber Studio site. I have raided my fabric and fibre stash and put together lots of goodies perfect for embellishing felt. There is lots of shiny things, including some crinkly synthetic fibres.

There is also some novelty yarns/fancy fibres: some long pieces and some shorter lengths

There are lots of different types of fabric pieces and 'scraps', silk, synthetic fabrics and organza

Some natural fibres and top, Top L-R Egyptian Cotton fibre, Crimped Viscose fibre, Bamboo Fibre. Bottom L-R: Flax, Ramie, Banana top.

Plus lots of other little things I keep adding as I think of them :)
For all the details head over to the Studio site, all you have to do to win is leave a comment on the post
Good Luck! :)

Cotton Gauze

Do you ever use lightweight cottons in your felting work? I’ve been quite busy lately working on my project of ‘other’ fibres and fabrics used in felting. I’ve been making a lot of felt pieces using lightweight cotton fabrics like muslin and cheesecloth. Another fabric I’ve used is Cotton Gauze, this is also known as ‘Scrim’, and I’ve used a couple of different types. This is some of the dyed pieces I have.

The gauze is really good for creating texture and effects. I’ve been making some large bold pieces to use for bookcovers.

I’ve also made some smaller pieces with resists, using the gauze for texture. This piece was for making into a pouch.

and this became a textured sculptural vessel

I’m starting to have a huge pile of colourful, texturey felt pieces all waiting to be made into something once the weather gets too hot for felting. This is a close up of a large piece I made for making a purse and matching mirror case out of.

The lightweight cottons also work really well for using in scarves and wraps instead of the usual silk. Do you use scrim or cotton fabrics in felting, or fibre art? How do you find it to work with? Have you ever dyed your own? (My hands are currently a strange shade after using red, blue and brown dyes this week!) I’d love to hear about your experiences with it and see photos if you have links :)

Nylon

Nylon is a great versatile fibre for using with felt. It is soft, shiny and can be dyed with acid dyes just like wool or silk. It is also really inexpensive and a small amount goes a long way. I made this first piece using just 3 colours of merino and 3 shades of dyed crimped nylon fibre: red, yellow and blue. I blended them togther to make more shades. It was really fluffy when I layed it out, but felted really nicely and flat, and had a soft, warm feel.

After Felting:

For this second piece I used trilobal nylon. This is sometimes given fancy names like 'Firestar' and a price tag to match, but it's just super-bright, shiny, inexpensive nylon. I used a rainbow blend from World of Wool, but separated the colours and blended them with similar shades of merino. The nylon created a really interesting texture, it gave the felt a kind of open look, even though it was well felted.

Close up of a corner:

I'd love to see what you make with nylon, whether it's felting, spinning, weaving or anything else :)

If you're interested in trying out different fibres, have a look at the Felting and Fiber Studio site, we have a section for other fibres, and have photos of man made and plant based fibres and photos of them used in felting. We also have an 'other fibres' category for all posts related to that.