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.