Ingeo Fibre

I haven't had chance to get my felting stuff out for ages, so I've been working on my epic 'Other fibres project', which originally was going to be a simple e-book guide to embellishment fibres, but has turned into something of a 7 year journey to try every fibre with every breed of wool and animal fibre I can get my hands on as it constantly gets shoved aside for other things. Looking through some of my samples, I found a couple of pieces using Ingeo. I like Ingeo fibre. All embellishment fibres have something which sets them apart from others, and for Ingeo, I think it's the way it looks soft and fluffy, and slightly matte. Although it isn't particularly shiny, but it does have a sheen.  This first piece is natural grey Merino.

You can see on this closer pic how it pulls together where it's laid out thicker:

Getting in closer, you can see the Merino migration through the Ingeo, and though the Ingeo is thick, it is still smooth:

This close up of the bottom shows what it looks like when it is sparser:

When I used Ingeo on this piece with dark grey Icelandic, I didn't lay it so thickly:

 I like the way it looks so different with the Icelandic, where it's sparse it even looks a different colour.

 There's a lot more migration with the coarser Icelandic:

 You can see on this close up where the Ingeo is quite dense, it pulls together in a similar way to on the Merino, but isn't quite as smooth:

 Do you have a favourite embellishment fibre or animal fibre and embellishment fibre combination?

Needle Felting and Milk Fibre

My last needle felted piece that I recently made is based on a photo I took at Sefton Park in Aigburth, Liverpool. It's such a great park and has a really famous Palm House, and a gorgeous lake. I simplified the photo:

I wet felted a simple piece for the background:

I used a mixture of texturey and curly wools like Icelandic, Devon, Bluefaced Leicester, mixed with softer wool and animal fibres like Merino, Alpaca and Angora rabbit, to get the different textures.

On the Felting and Fiber Forum recently, Judy was asking about Milk Protein Fibre. I'd recently made a felted piece with Milk protein fibre and also Ingeo, so I thought I'd share a few photos of the milk part. The wool I used is a dark grey Icelandic, I laid a strip of milk top across the wool.

I like using milk, it responds well to the characteristics of the wool it's used with and looks good whether it is used with a soft wool or a more coarser one:

This is a close up of one of the thicker areas:

We've been updating the 2014 Challenge Gallery on The Felting and Fiber Studio site, if you'd like a look at all the contributions. If you made a piece for any of the challenges and you'd like yours added to the gallery, let one of us know. You can use the Contact Us form if you like.