Happy New Year!

It's been pretty obvious to the two (three?!) of you who read my blog that I've had difficulty keeping up with it for quite a while now, like I mentioned in a blog post in June. I made a similar post on The Felting and Fiber Studio site in November, and if you read the comments, you'll see that I'm not alone! As I was stressing again this week about how much I've let slide, and worrying about how I'll even 'catch up', let alone stay on top of things, I thought I would start with a look back over the year like we do on the Studio site each year. But instead of making a couple of slide-shows of my work, like I did there, I thought I would pick one project from each month of the past year to share. And this made me realise that if I find it so hard to blog weekly, why don't I blog monthly instead? Seems obvious when you think about it doesn't it!?! I didn't make anything in January, but over the holiday break I tidied up the supplies from the class I do at the Well-Being Centre and in late Jan/early Feb I made lots of batts from all the odds and ends and matted bits of wool tops from the bottoms of boxes:

In March I made a couple of vessels, I used texturey wools on this one and left it to dry without anything inside to shape it and I liked the way it came out:

Having a 'play day' at the well-being centre one day in April, I made this piece using tubes of wool made by wrapping wool wisps around a kebab stick:

In May, I made a nuno felted piece for a challenge on the Studio site. This is one of my favourite photos from while I was making it, I thought it looked like a cow's stomach/tripe!

This is what the finished piece looked like held over a lightbulb:

In June I made a felted painting for a friend. I'd shown him some photos of paintings I'd done and he liked a few in this style:

Originally, I'd planned to do a painting on canvas for him, but the technique I'd used didn't transfer to canvas very well, so instead I thought I'd see how well the idea worked in felt. I have to say, it's one of my favourite pieces I've ever made!

I kind of got hooked on making felt pieces inspired by paintings, I used this painting too for inspiration:

And this is the felt piece I made:

In July, I made a kind of seascape felt piece:

And then used it to make a notebook cover:

In August, I made a few collage pieces for greetings cards, this is one of them:

I did a bit of needlefelting in September, this is a piece I made using various wools dyed with natural dyes:

This is a piece I made in October for another Studio Challenge, I combined wool tubes and twists with nuno felting:

I made a purple and black piece embellished with lots of undyed fibres, in November:

One of the last things I made last year was a case for my best friend's birthday. I made it in one piece over a resist and used silk to line it, I added a button and stitching before I gave it to him, but here it is when it had dried:

I'm grateful for anybody who ever takes the time to read the blog posts and I hope to blog a bit more frequently this year. I hope you have a fibre filled 2019! Happy New Year :)

Experimental Nuno Vessel

Over on the Felting and Fiber Studio site, we have Quarterly Challenges. The 2nd Quarter Challenge for this year was to use fabric as a surface design, and try a technique that you hadn't tried before. Ann made a point of saying I wasn't allowed to make a sample (I do that a lot?!), so I didn't, but it was more of a 'prototype' :) I wanted to combine using 'extreme nuno' that I'd been playing around with a lot, and vessels, so Ann's challenge gave me the push to try it.

I cut out a template, sort of bowl shaped, but not for any reason, I just wanted something big and not square. Then I started adding strips of white fabrics to it: synthetic chiffon, muslin, scrim and cotton gauze. I then added fine layers of Rambouillet. This photo shows it wet down and it's just started to felt:

Once the resist started to curl and I knew it was properly felted, I started to full it on bubble-wrap. It really puffed up!

I removed the resist and carried on fulling, I turned it the right side out, and realised I’d accidentally made a felted cow stomach!

I tested to see if it was fulled enough by inflating a balloon inside, then carried on fulling until I was happy with it. This isn’t the best photo, but you can see the shrinkage, compare it to the first photo - it started out the full height of the netting:

I rinsed it and left on a balloon to shape and dry. This is how it looked finished:

This is another side:

This is some nice ruffley chiffon on the bottom, between some Cotton Gauze and cotton scrim:

And, since the thought behind the idea was that it’d make an interesting lampshade, here it is on a lightbulb:

Close Up:

 And a different angle:

Even though it's just a prototype, I have used it on my little bedroom torch while I've been listening to music before going to sleep!

Scarves Part One

I've been into making scarves lately, though I probably carded more wool and ironed more scrim and gauze than I used for making scarves, but I have finished quite a few. This is a white one I made a few weeks ago:

I used 18.5 mic Merino, and Rose fibre for embellishing:

I cut the scarf wider than my template, and scrunch gathered it to size before adding the wool, so it'd have some texture on the back:

I also made a short, wide scarf/wrap similar to the white scarf, using natural cotton scrim and 18.5 mic Merino:

It's about 3 times as wide as the scarf, and I didn't scrunch the scrim first:

I used 3 different cellulose fibres for embellishing this: Viscose, Rose and Tencel, this is the Viscose:

Another scarf I made recently is this bright, colourful one. I always prefer the side where the wispy ends of the wool tops overlap (or underlap since they're laid first) the next colour:

This is the other side where the colours are in blocks:

An 'arty' shot to shop how soft it is :)

I think the multi one is the only scarf I made recently which isn't nuno-felt. This next one was made with 18.5 mic Merino and hand dyed cotton scrim. I embellished this with hand dyed bamboo top:

I cut a strip of subtley variegated lemon/yellow scrim to size, then cut the strip into roughly even pieces and re-arranged them before adding the Merino on top:

I've got a few more scarves to show, so check back before the end of the year to see part two :)

Nuno Felt Scarf Samples

We're making scarves at the well-being centre. To practise, we're using strips of scrim and some fine 18.5 mic Merino. I made some scarf samples with the scrim and wool. These are the ones I made:

The top one has a fine, narrow strip of wool all the way around; some random narrow strips and a few 'blobs' of blue:

The second one down has a simple grid pattern made from fine, narrow strips:

The middle piece has two fine layers (1 horizontal, 1 vertical) of wool tops:

The fourth one down had resist strips placed along the scrim, then two fine layers of wool, and embellished with some very shiny cellulose fibre I got in a bag of Botany lap waste-it's different to any others I've got, so from what World of Wool sold at the time, and the fact it is most like viscose, I'm guessing it is Tencel:

The bottom piece has a fine, narrow strip of wool all around and through the centre, and has wool in the same position on the back of the piece. It's the only one which does. I also fulled the middle more than the outside, so the edges waved:

The last orange one at the side has flowers in the middle made from the same 18.5 mic Merino, and leaves at each corner, it also has leaves on the back at each corner:

And for something a bit different, I made a demo scarf using dyed, irregular pieces of scrim as a base This is the scrim side:

And the wool side, also using 18.5 mic Merino, and embellished with viscose:

If you're interested in learning more about Nuno Felting and why how, and where you position your wool affects the outcome, so you can get the results you want, have a look at the info page for my e-book, Beyond Nuno: http://feltbyzed.blogspot.co.uk/p/e-books.html