Nuno Felt and abstract

I've been busy making lots of nuno felt samples lately, mostly for reference but I've also made a few larger pieces for making into things like bookcovers, purses etc. These are two pieces for making into something, but I haven't decided what yet :) They use use mainly silk chiffon 3.5mm and silk ponge 5mm.
This first piece has alternating strips of chiffon and ponge:

You can from the close up the different textures of the two types of silk. I like the way chiffon seems to melt into the wool to become a part of it.

Aswell as the chiffon and ponge, I used some pieces from silk scarves for this mosaic piece

                                    



Close up:

I think chiffon is my new favourite silk, it doesn't ripple or ruche as much as other silk under the same conditions, but I think that works in its favour for some projects.

Over on The Felting and Fiber Studio site, Ann posted her second quarter studio challenge. The challenge is to make an abstract piece from a photograph. I got a bit carried away and tried abstracting almost everything in my picture folder :) I've had a couple attempts, one was a shell from organza which didn't work out, and this one, which was my first abstract, an abstract picture of a kiss, using craft felt and needlefelting.

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.

Natural Wools and Fibres (3)

I recently got some gorgeous brown Finnish wool tops and some dark brown Corriedale tops from World of Wool, so thought I'd try them out with some 'other' fibres. Usually, I'll just try one fibre with a particular wool first, but I couldn't decide which fibre to try with the Finnish first, so thought I'd try a few. I really liked how this turned out. From Top to Bottom, the fibres are: Banana Fibre; Soybean fibre; Ingeo; Flax; Milk protein fibre; Hemp and Ramie. They were all in the form of tops.

With the dark brown Corriedale, I used some white cotton gauze

It was only meant as a test sample, but I really liked the way it looked in a frame:

And just for a change, I tried some felted soap. I've never been much good at this, the soap shrinks faster than the wool and it always seems loose. Lyn from Rosiepink, helped me out with instructions and this turned out quite well.

I've noticed that since Blogger has that Carousel/slide show thing when pictures are clicked on, you don't get a large picture anymore. If you right click on the photo in the carousel, choose 'properties' you can get the URL for the full sized photo. Copy and paste in a new tab for a big photo.

Natural Wools and Fibres (2)

A couple of other Natural wool and fibre combinations I've tried recently are grey Suffolk and Banana fibre, and grey Norwegian and Milk protein fibre. Grey Suffolk is a coarse wool and the felt it makes is kind of loose or spongey. Although the banana did felt onto the Suffolk somewhat, it wasn’t firmly attached and gave interesting cobweb like results. It reminded me of the photos of fields and trees that are covered in webs after flooding.

The grey Norwegian felted really nicely, the wave and crimp of the wool re-appeared after felting and it pulled on the milk protein fibre, which was already waving from being pulled by the shrinking felt. It gave that an interesting texture too, and made it more rippley.

Natural wools and fibres

I've been trying out different natural coloured wools with different natural fibres over the past few months. By 'natural' fibres, I mean plant based like bamboo, corn, soybean, hemp etc, though there have also been a few trials with leaves and stuff from the garden :)
Flax looks and feels just like dried plant material before felting, but after felting is a lot softer and shiny. This is a before and after felting picture of flax wet felted with natural brown merino tops:

Another combination I tried was Black Jacob tops and natural Soybean tops. As the felt was drying the soybean looked a gorgeous shiny golden colour:

One of my favourites lately was Oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester with Ingeo top, I covered the whole piece with Ingeo tops. This was another piece that really shined in the dim light as it was drying. Here's a half and half picture of drying and dry:

Humbug Jacob Tops is a blend of black and white Jacob fleece that gives a subtle stripey effect, I used strips of black and white bamboo with this. Black bamboo is very matt, and white bamboo is very shiny.

                                    

Do you have any favourite combinations of natural wools and natural fibres? It's really interesting seeing how a fibre can look very different depending on which wool it's used with.
If you'd like to see more/bigger versions of the photos, have a look on the Felting and Fiber Studio site.
This post features the Flax and Soybean pieces, and this post features the Ingeo and Bamboo. If you click 'permalink' under the photos in the gallery, you get proper sized photos.

Even more sewing!

I've been busy tidying up/clearing out recently, but I've managed to get some sewing done when I've had some sit down with a cup of tea time. The first thing I did was some sewing on a very hairy hand felted alpaca bag. I used some poor quality alpaca tops that I got a few years ago and made a little bag with a flap. You can see pictures of it here. I thought I'd use it to try out some TAST stitches. The first thing I did was add some little shapes to the flap. I made a pattern in Photoshop, stitched an outline, then filled the shapes in with really close blanket/buttonhole stitch.

I've started on the front of the bag, but I've only done a border so far. I used shisha mirrors bought from ebay in the centre of my shapes and a few people were interested in them. While I was searching for pictures of the mirrors, I came across this great tutorial from Emily at joyfulabode.com about how to sew your own shisha mirrors. I gave it a go and was surprised at how well it worked out. I'm not sure I do it exactly the same as her on the back stitch, but it works and looks good! :)

I added chain stitch around the edge:

I've already started working on using different things to attach with the same technique.

The latest thing I finished was my chain stitch piece from last week's TAST. I'm running really low on my natural yarn now, so I'll have to get the spindle out and make more! It'd be nice to have a supply of bought natural wool threads, so if you know anywhere that sells them...something around the thickness of cotton perle 5...I'd be grateful to know :)

More Stitching

I've been learning some new stitches with Take a Stitch Tuesday. I found it quite hard at first, but then I bought some aida fabric with holes which helped me learn the stitches neatly (there's a lot of counting in sewing!). I wanted to try actually using the stitches though, so made some felt to practise, but then I worried about messing up and ruining it :) So I hunted through my scrap box (I never throw any felt away) and found some offcuts from when I made a set of placemats and coasters. I had some handspun thread that I also made at the same time, but spun some more just in case.
I then edged some offcuts with blanket stitch and practised my new sewing skills :)

                                                                      Buttonhole:

                                                                       Fly Stitch:

                                                                   Cretan Stitch:

Feather Stitch:

Herringbone:

Chevron Stitch:

I love using natural wools, and I'm really enjoying learning new stitches :)
I do have one problem though, I only have 1 good needle. I bought some embroidery needles, but they're not sharp and I need sharp to poke through thick wool, if anyone has any advice, I'd be really grateful :)