Completed Projects

The two main projects I was working on recently were my white textured felt piece and my stitched felt piece. I was working on them a little at a time when I got the chance, inspired by Ruth's Daily Dose of Fiber Challenge on the Felting and Fiber Studio Site. It took a while, but I finally finished the stitched felt piece, and I really like the way it turned out.

I thought I would never get a clear, bright enough day to photograph my finished white texture piece, but I finally did last week. I had to take it outside and use a large piece of cardboard because the locks make it about 27 inches from top to bottom. I used lots of different white wools on this piece, mostly to keep it soft and 'spongey'. English 56s, Swaledale, Texel and Cheviot were used for the main body texture. I used wool saved from my hand carders, scraps of cotton gauze and cheesecloth and carded lambswool between the layers to increase texture.

I tried something a little different with this piece, I left the centre without any wool when I laid out the first two layers, then added a piece of cotton gauze before the last two layers.

It worked out really well, you can see from this close up how a few wool wisps crept behind the gauze.

I added the locks around the sides at the same time I added the gauze. They kept their shape really well during felting and none of them tangled together.  The Angora, Wensleydale and Teeswater locks in this next photo show how nicely they turned out.

For surface texture I used cotton gauze, scoured Bluefaced Leicester and Wensleydale, raw Mohair, wool nepps, raw Gotland, Teeswater and Wensleydale locks, and embellishment fibres soybean top and silk noil.

I haven't had chance to work on anything for a few weeks, but I'm going to continue with Ruth's challenge as much as possible for the whole year, not just the first quarter, I think it has really helped for organising and to keep projects fresh in my mind, even if it just from relisting them each day in my diary :)

January Projects

I've been trying to find ways of having a few projects on the go so I can work on them for a few minutes at a time where possible. A few months ago, I posted on the Felting and Fiber Studio site about a couple of felt pieces I'd made with the intention of practising stitches for the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge. I didn't keep up with the challenge, so had the pieces spare. I decided to add some stitching to the first piece. This is how it looked originally. I started by machine stitching around the patches of colour.

Over the next couple of days, I added some hand stitched straight stitches, first in in yellow and then added some in orange.

Another project I got started on this week is a white texture felt piece. Liz from That Fuzzy Feeling blog, recently made a gorgeous piece of texture felt and it inspired me to make one. I decided to make a natural white one, so I got to play with (and smell!) my collection of wool, alpaca and mohair locks. They are mostly unwashed so my hands felt really nice afterwards.

The first day I managed to get as far as laying it out and sewing up around the edges. So far, I've managed to add the stitches from the top to the bottom.

Thanks to Ruth for encouraging us to find ways to fit in a few minutes of fibre time each day, I've managed to get a lot more done this week than I otherwise would have. It might not be much each day, but before long, it all adds up to finished projects I wouldn't have had without the challenge :)  Ruth's been blogging about her Daily Dose of Fibre, check out her blog for her gorgeous bead books, stitched fused fabric, and more.

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.

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 :)

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.

Lots of new fibres!

On Thursday I took a trip to Huddersfield to visit World of Wool.
It's a great place and the people are so nice and friendly.
You are personally shown round to look at, touch and smell all the great wools and fibres they have...my favourite was the milk protein fibre- looks, smells and feels gorgeous.
I was quite restrained and just bought a few shades of merino, some oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester and bamboo top
L-R Bamboo top, Black Bamboo top, oatmeal Bluefaced Leicester

We had a second Fibre Swap on the Felting Forum recently, my swap partner was Cytel . I couldn't wait to open my parcel when it arrived today, and had a great time looking at and feeling all the great fibres and fabric samples I received:

The top row is 4 natural Alpaca shades and Alpaca hand dyed with natural dyes in Peru.
The middle row is a greeny merino and silk blend, a hand dyed blue angora and polwarth 50/50 blend, and an earthy coloured hand dyed roving 100% targe top.
The bottom row is: Silk throwster's waste; raw fleece-merino cormo cross; very bright merino tops
I think I'll enjoy using all these :)