Suffolk, Banana, Masham and Bamboo

I've used banana fibre tops with suffolk wool tops before, so I know they look really interesting together. I fluffed up some of the banana fibre, and added it to the top of the Suffolk. Though I used less of the banana fibre than I have previously, I wasn't disappointed by the results.

This angled picture shows the texture more:

This is a close up of the centre part:

And this is a supermacro of the wool and fibre texture:

In the middle along the right edge is an area where the fibres are a little thicker. In the top photos it looks quite dense, but a supermacro close up shows the tangle of wool and banana fibres.

And from this angle you can see the pattern even better:

 Another combination of wool and fibres I found really interesting is Grey Masham and Bamboo top. I'm not sure if Masham is classed as a coarse breed, I think its Micron count is between 29 and 34. It's certainly more 'wiry' than fine wools, but is still quite soft to the touch. The contrast of the wool and sheen of the bamboo was quite striking, yet at the same time, the wool seemed to 'absorb' the fibre. This is the whole piece from an angle:

This is slightly closer and from above, there's an area in the centre with barely any fibre on it:

This is a close up of the dense patch just to the right, it's interesting to see how the fibres are still affected by the characteristics of the wool even when they are thicker.

This is a close up of the area just left of centre at the top of the piece, showing dense and sparse patches:

I hope you're not getting bored of these because I have about 30 other breeds of wool and about 15 natural fibres, I'm not going to do the maths, but that's quite a variety of combinations I can come up with!

Very Pink!

My sister got me some wool tops for Christmas. Even before I'd seen the colours, I'd decided I'd make her a book cover from whatever she chose, thinking she'd probably choose her favourites. She chose a selection of pinks, not the colours I would have chosen for her, but pinks it is :)  I Picked out some shades I already had that I thought would work with them, I already had a salmon pink, some cerisey purple, reds, maroons and a nice lemon. Then I started to make some batts with my drum carder.

At first I made up some batts without any other fibres blended in, I'll use these for the bottom layer which will be inside the book cover. I split them in half lengthways after I'd made them, then rolled them up.

This is one of the lighter batts before I split it and rolled it:

I used some soy top, viscose, a small amount of banana fibre, black bamboo and dyed silk tops to blend in to make the batts for the top.

I rolled these ones a bit differently:

I picked some fabrics to embellish the surface with, some silk strips, organza, dyed cotton gauze and some synthetic lacey stuff I bought years ago which looks like it might be meant for tying back net curtains. In the 70's :)

I picked a few more embellishments too. Some silk throwster's waste, dyed bamboo fibre, commercial art yarns and fibres taken from unpicked yarns.

I'll show you more pictures when I've started to make it :)

Felting the Weather

On the Felting and Fiber Studio Site a few months ago, Karen Challenged us to make something depicting our weather. I didn't have chance to felt mine until New Year's day, but I took lots of photos and started looking at them and thinking how I could try to capture them in felt. I also started to make up some blends of wool and fibres to capture the colours and tones.

I didn't want to try to recreate any of the photos, just try to capture the feeling of the ever changing sky and clouds. This first piece is based on some of the sunsets here recently, they haven't been as deep or spectacular as usual, probably because it's been wet, dark and warm instead of bright and cold, but sometimes there's a little hint of peachey copper.

This is a close up of the coppery silk throwster's waste:

This next piece is based on the thick white and grey cloudy days; billowing, rolling clouds, subtley changing as they grow and float past. It is made from lots of different natural white and light grey wools blended with flax, soy fibre and bamboo for soft golden highlights. The locks are Gotland and Mohair and Bluefaced Leicester.

I love days when we get huge swirling black and grey clouds, constantly changing as they storm through the sky. These next two pieces are part of a larger one inspired by dark, cloudy days. I used carded Gotland wool for the background and laid raw Gotland locks in shades from light grey to black on top for the rolling clouds.

This last piece wasn't based on a photo I took or anything I saw out of the window, but it was inspired by many photos of the effects of the torrential rain we've had in the UK over the past 3 months (or last 9 really). A lot of the photos haven't been pretty; muddy brown water waist deep, roads and pavements broken, whole rows of houses collapsed...but there have beeen some spectacular ones of stormy, cloudy skies and stormy seas, raging rivers, and some great ones of large stormy clouds in bright blue skies reflected on miles of  flooded fields. I wish I'd downloaded the photos, but I'm not sure I could post them without infringeing copyright. This last piece is probably my favourite.

If you'd like to see some of my sky photos, they're in a set on flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedster01/sets/72157632441877866/

White felt lampshade cover

I've been promising Heather for ages that I'd get round to making a white felt lampshade cover after she shared hers, and I did make the felt about a week ago, but I only got around to sewing it the other day. I handspun some thin white yarn to hem the top and sew the seam, but I left the natural edge along the bottom.

I'm wishing I placed some locks over the edge now.

The bottom is a thin layer of 18.5 mic natural white merino, then there's a thin layer of 23 mic natural white merino. The 3rd layer is lots of different natural coloured locks and curls-Mohair, Wensleydale, Angora, Teeswater, Bluefaced Leicester, and some wool nepps too. The top thin layer has natural Merino, Devon, Romney and Texel tops, topped with silk, ramie, bamboo, Teeswater, Mohair, soya bean fibre and silk noil. There's a few bits of vegetable matter in there too :)

Felt Lamp Shade

Hello :)

Sorry I haven't posted recently, I just didn't have the time for felting for a while and then lacked inspiration and motivation.

I spent ages recently trying to find some nice lamp shades, but wasn't impressed with any I saw. So I just ended up buying some very plain ones. I love the way the vessel I made for my girlfriend looks when there's a tealight inside, so I decided to try to make my own shades with felt and hoped they'd look as good.

I made a piece of felt by laying out two fine layers of merino, then a fine layer of curly wools and locks (angora, wensleydale, mohair, bluefaced leicester) then a top layer of fine merino and finished off with silks, ramie and bamboo.

I made a template from the lampshade I'd bought and wanted to cover, and cut out the shape I needed from my felt. I blanket stitched around the edges, then sewed the two seems together. It fits snuggly over the top of the shade, and looks great when the light is shining through :)

For a quick guide on how to make one, visit my flickr page

Textured Felt

I stumbled across an entry recently on fibrefrolics' blog, about a really easy technique for making textured felt, using only sewing and the washing machine. I love textured felt and experimenting, and any technique that eliminates rubbing and rolling sounds good to me, so I had to give it a go :)

I only had a white wash planned, so I layed out a piece with all white fibres. I used layers of natural merino tops, English 56's and combed lambswool. Extra fibres on the top were Bamboo top and washed Bluefaced Leicester, all from World of Wool. The top layer was Polwarth and there was also some Angora locks added to the top, both from Karen's Felt Works. I also added some Alpaca and Kid Mohair.

This is what it looked like after sewing, before I put it in the washing machine:

And, this is what it looked like when it was almost dry:

There are a few more photos on my flickr photostream including photos of it just after washing and a close up.

If anyone's ever wondered whether commercial pre-felt is worth buying, I also have some photos on flickr of a few practice samples of that-a couple of different thicknesses and how it works for nuno felting.