Recent Work

I mentioned recently that I'm doing a Craft Fair soon. It's this coming Sunday at Victoria Baths on Hathersage Road in Manchester. They also do guided tours that day, so if you're interested, have a look at their website.
In my post last time, I showed a faintly plaid felt piece which I'd started to make into a diary cover. Here is the finished cover:

I also mentioned a piece of silk I got for £3 a metre. I did manage to use it on a felt piece, but i haven't made it into a cover yet. It looked a bit nicer and brighter just before the final fulling, but I wanted to make sure it would stand up to years of handling:

I don't know if you remember a couple of pictures I posted as part of the Felting and Fiber Studio site's Jackson Pollock challenge from a bag I was working on, well, I never did get around to finishing the bag, and when I saw it recently, I thought I could cut it up and turn it into a nice sturdy diary cover. So, I did :)  This is the front:

And, this is the back:

I always forget just how long it takes to do those covers! Also, because I didn't have any coloured threads which I thought would be just right, I 'blended' my own. I took a strand each of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Violet embroidery floss and made a 6 strand rainbow. I had to do that for each part I stitched, and I was starting to regret it by the end :) 

One of the things I wondered after the last fair was whether it was obvious that my stuff was actually handmade felt made from real wool. A lot of my stuff is well felted or nuno felt, so to anyone who doesn't know felt, it could just be commercial fabric I've bought. So I thought I would make some obviously wool natural pieces for book covers. They are made from lots of different breeds of wool and embellished with locks, some mohair boucle from Marilyn, some silk noil, and viscose and bamboo. This one has the most added embellishments:

I did actually use the same size template for these pieces, but with all the different wools and embellishments there was different shrinkage. For this piece, I tried to stick to wools which were more similar: Merino, Bluefaced Leicester, Finn and Corriedale, and there are less embellishments:

If I get chance before the fair, I'll upload the finished covers to ipernity or the forum.http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/

More Sculptural Felt, a Craft Fair and Some Diary Covers

I've been working on some sculptural felt and bamboo pieces lately. I've used different shades/breeds of natural wool tops and both black and white bamboo tops. This first piece has a base made with a variety of brown and grey scoured wools and natural wool tops that I carded into a batt. On top of that are twists of grey merino with white bamboo top. When it was almost felted, I cut and rolled and folded, then fulled to get the texture and effect I wanted.

This next piece was made with brown Finnish wool for the base, twists of dark brown Corriedale and black bamboo were positioned on top. This was also folded and fulled to get the shape I wanted.

This piece was made mostly from English 56's, the base was two layers, then I added some thick twists to the top to help define the ridges I wanted. I added 2 very fine layers of 18.5 mic merino over the top, then positioned some black bamboo over the raised parts where the twists were. When it was almost felted, I folded it concertina style, secured with sewing thread and finished felting by rubbing, and rolling one end at a time to get a twist in it. It's about 8 inches long. This is the back:

This is the front:

Close up of the texture on the inside of the back:

And a close up of the bamboo:

I've mostly spent the past week getting ready for a Craft Fair this coming Saturday, it's at the LGBT Centre on Sidney Street, Manchester if you're in the area! There's Christmas Carols around 12 noon and a Christmas Dinner around 2pm as well as the craft fair.  I've printed tags and business cards and have made and cut out felt for 5 Diary covers. I've only got 2 finished so far, but it takes about 8 hours just to position/reposition/double check the closure straps, and then blanket stitch around them and all the edges (I'm up to episode 24 of Prisoner Cell Block H!) This is an orange one that I finished first:

And this is a green one I finished yesterday:

Keep an eye on my etsy for loads of cheap 2014 diaries in case none of them sell :)