Texture

A while ago I bought a weird fluffy, knitted, tubular scarf from Poundland to try felting with. If you ever buy one, make sure you cut it over a bucket or newspaper or something to catch all the bits! I laid out a couple of layers of very wispy pink Merino tops left over from a book cover I made last year, then I added the piece of scarf, and 2 more wispy layers of wool tops. It didn't take long to felt. This is one side of it:

This is the other side of it:

And this is what it looked like holding it up to the sky:

I don't remember how long after, but I decided the scarf sampler might make a nice sculptural piece similar to one I'd made before. I didn't make it in exactly the same way, I concertina'd it and stitched in place, then twisted and felted and fulled more. This is the top:

Close up of the ridges:

Super Close up of the texture:

This is the back:

Close up of the back:

Super close up of the texture:

I have a lot of this scarf left over, I don't know what I'll do with it, maybe a few more sculptural pieces, maybe one big one. What would you do with 8 square feet of purple fluffy knitted stuff?

Kapok Fibre

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'd bought a new fibre to try out, Kapok fibre. Like cotton, it grows around the seed of the plant, but is much lighter and softer. As much as I like fibre tops, I do like the shorter staple fibres, especially with coarser wools for the way they interact with the wool and produce more 'natural' looking effects. They often seem to mimic things you find in nature such as cobwebs, fungus or mould, which look solid but are really soft or fluffy when you look closer. This first panel is natural white 23 Micron Merino. I took a 'piece' of the kapok fibres and teased it apart, sames as you would silk noil, and laid it across the wool. It's hard to see the Kapok at all.

I know a lot of people don't like curly or coarser wools for felting, especially if they mainly make felt paintings or want a brightly coloured, smooth, firm felt. But I'm the type of person who loves textures and shades and tones as much as colour, and love rocks and tree barks just as much as flowers or minerals.  So, if you're like me, you might like these next couple of pieces which I made using Shetland and Finnish wools. For this first one, I used grey Shetland tops and added fluffed up, teased apart Kapok fibre:

I like the effect the thinner parts of fibre produces:

One of the areas where the fibre was denser:

I made the Finnish piece double sided. I first put some teased apart Kapok fibre on my template, then added the brown Finnish tops. I added a layer of black Finnish tops, then blended some Kapok fibre with black Finnish noil and added that. I added some Kapok fibre on its own in a few spaces and blended a small amount of Kapok With black Finnish top and added that too. This is the brown side:

Close up 1:

One of the denser areas:

This is the black Finnish side:

A close up of a dense fibre part:

This is a close up of the Fibre blended with the wool:

Do you have a favourite coarse of curly wool? What do you use it for? Do you have a favourite embellishment fibre? You're welcome to link me to any pics or come and post about it on the Felting and Fiber 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 :)

Bluefaced Leicester and Crimped Viscose Fibre

A couple of weeks ago, I made some felt panels using Yake fibre with Bamboo Staple Fibre, and Bluefaced Leicester with crimped Viscose fibre. This is the Yak piece with Bamboo:

I posted about it on the Felting and Fiber Studio site a few days ago if you want to read more, and I've been uploading my photos to Ipernity if you want to see better photos in more detail. Although Viscose top is very similar to Bamboo top, crimped Viscose fibre isn't quite so similar to Bamboo fibre. There are some similarities, for example the way the strands of fibre curl. Viscose is whiter in appearance than the creaminess of Bamboo, and bamboo appears shiner, catching the light on its crimp. I teased the viscose apart and laid it on top of the Bluefaced Leicester:

This is a close up of the area in the top left corner. I teased the fibres apart and 'fluffed' them up:

This is the area just to the right, I separated the fibres but tried not to lose the curly charecteristics of the strands too much:

This is the area just below, it is a bit denser, but you can still see the characteristics of the fibre:

Just below that is an area where the fibre is sparser, I separated the fibre, fluffed it up and laid it on quite thinly.

This is the area in the bottom right corner, I added some interesting, longer strands of the viscose fibre:

I took a couple of photos of the two pieces side by side for comparison. The Yak and Bamboo is on the left and the BFL and Viscose is on the right. You can see the differences from this one, the bamboo is 'fluffier',  and shinier, and the viscose is whiter and less 'compact'.

From this photo close up, you can see some of the similarities in the fibres' characteristics:

My new favourite fibre, Kapok:

It is so soft, you can barely feel it. I thought yak felt like a kitten's belly, this is twice as soft as that :)