More Textured Felt

One thing I didn't like about the burgundy textured nuno felt piece I showed last time, was the effect of the wool migration. Completely unavoidable obviously, but I thought I'd try white fabrics with white wool to mimimise the visual impact of the migration. I started with a small sample, I used various cotton fabrics, like gauze, scrim and muslin; some silk crepe, and some synthetic chiffon:

Looking at it on an angle, you can see even more texture:

This is some folded cotton gauze:

This is one of the pieces of silk crepe:

I liked all the textures, but the synthetic chiffon really ruffled up:

The ruffles it created could be used to recreate effects for lots of different projects, here's a close up:

I used most of the same fabrics on a larger piece:

Here's a close up off the left side:

And a close up of the right side:

I thought this was the kind of technique which would work really well with synthetic organza, it comes in different weights and finishes, so even though it has similarities, there are differences too. I used dyed Merino for this:

Looking at an angle shows the many different textures:

 This was a soft yellow organza, it 'folded' in columns:

You can see these organzas had a more crumpled texture. You can see the migration too, and though it affected the look of the finished piece and 'changed' the colours of the organza pieces, it was more subtle than with the large piece I made last time:

New Felt Diary Cover

Before the black Merino and multi fibre notebook cover I made recently, I'd started to make a greeny blue one for a diary. The first batt I was happy with on my drum carder was blues and greens so I used this for the top layer. As well as Merino, I added some texturey Icelandic wool, and locks of Bluefaced Leicester and Wensleydale that I dyed a few years. I added lots of surface embellishments: silk fabric, cotton gauze, organza, silk top, silk throwster's waste, some synthetic curly fibres and some more of the dyed texturey, curly wools.

It was too large to get a decent clear 'after felting' photo, but this is almost all of it:

This notebook took even longer than the black one as it was the first one I'd made like this, using felt off cuts for the straps and hand sewing all around the edges:

I machine stitched the smaller strip onto the wide closure strip.

And I machine stitched the two pieces onto the back.

But I finished all the edges with blanket stitch.

I kept the natural edge of the felt for the inside front flap, I like the little detail of pink and yellow on the silk at the top.

Coppery Bronze Felt

I hadn't handmade any new felt for a few months until this week. I knew I'd have a spare couple of days for doing layouts and felting, so I went through my supplies and got a few things together. I wanted to make a texturey piece in coppers bronzes and metallic tones, so I chose some commercial art yarns, ribbon, silk tops and silk throwsters waste in those shades:

I also looked through my organza and found a few different gold shades:

I mainly used a shade of Merino from World of Wool called 'Rust', but used a few other shades and blends as well so it wasn't too 'flat'. I really like the way it turned out.

I can't resist a couple of Supermacro close ups of the texture  :)

This is one of the organza pieces.

Another piece I felted yesterday was a nuno felted piece for Ann's challenge on The Felting and Fiber Studio site. I found a quite gaudy vintage pink synthetic headscarf in my supplies and thought I'd make a piece using that. The weather was great yesterday: storm clouds, lightning, thunder, hailstone, but it kept going too dark to take good photos so here's a sneaky peek at some close ups and I'll post the whole piece soon. Ripples:

Ruffles:

If you've joined in with Ann's challenge or would like to, post a link to your work in reply to the challenge post or if you have a flickr account, tag your photo with 'felting and fiber studio challenge' and add it to the flickr group, it will show up on the Studio site's main page.

Giveaway—Beyond Nuno PDF e-book

As a big Thank You for all the support I've had since I started felting and blogging, I'm giving away a copy of my new PDF e-book called Beyond Nuno on The Felting and Fiber Studio Site. It's all about using different fabrics in wet felting, why and how they felt the way they do, how different effects are achieved etc. I hope to show that there's more to nuno felting than just ruffled silk scarves and that it is possible to control the outcome of nuno felting. For more details you can read the blurb on Craftsy or the e-book page of this blog.

You don't need to do anything special to enter, just leave a comment on the Giveaway post post. If you'd like to spread the word through your blog or facebook etc, it would be very much appreciated but it isn't a requirement. I will randomly draw the winner 8 days from now on 4th March 2013, so please check back to the studio site to see if you've won and leave a comment on the announcement post so I can contact you with the download information.

Good Luck! :)

My new e-book

It seems like it's been forever in the making, and months since it was actually completed, but the e-book I have been working on is finally available to buy!

Beyond Nuno explores the use of fabrics in the art of making wool felt by the traditional wet-felting method. It features the fabrics most commonly used in felting--silk, organza and the open-weave cottons scrim, cheesecloth and muslin. There are also additional sections on synthetic fabrics and other lightweight cottons.
The book shows how these fabrics work with wool to create certain effects and how they can be used effectively and manipulated with different techniques.

Unlike project based books, the content focuses on how and why these fabrics work the way they do to provide the info you need for more control over the outcome of your nuno felting; how to achieve the effects you desire, and provide a basis for continued experimentation instead of feeling that felting is all just ‘guess-work’.
There are 190 full-colour, high quality photos in the book. Every photo is taken carefully to clearly demonstrate the information in the text. There are also many supermacro shots to show high definition examples of wool fibres and fabric weave to further illustrate the information, and because this is an e-book, all the photos can be enlarged up to 300% for even more detail without losing any quality.

Although nuno felting is seen as an ‘advanced skill’ in felting, I think anyone who has tried felting will find this book very easy to understand and follow. In the introduction, there’s a small step by step demonstration of how I felt, and I’ve included a small glossary at the end to help make things clear.

Hopefully before too long it'll be available to buy straight from my blog, but for now it is available from Craftsy.  http://www.craftsy.com/pattern/felting/beyond-nuno/45714

I really enjoyed making the book and it was hard to stop, there was always something else that was 'vital' and just had to be included!

 I had lots of help and must say some thank-yous. Thank you to my girlfriend for putting up with many mini-meltdowns and for giving me a unique perspective which I think has really helped to make this book different to anything else around. A massive Thank You to Lyn from rosiepink. Lyn has published an excellent e-book, a step by step guide to Creating Felt Artwork, and as well as reading and re-reading endless drafts of my book, gave me lots of invaluable advice about the whole publishing and selling side of things. Thanks, Lyn :)
I must also thank Karen and Ruth. Sorry for all the ranting and moaning, Kaz, and thanks so much for reading through and making sure it was clear and simple. Thank you so much for your thorough proof reading, Ruth, all your suggestions and invaluable insight. Ruth is the author of the fantastic Complete Photo Guide To Felting. Thanks to Pam from the forum for all your help with the Introduction, getting that right really helped make the rest of the book clear. And Thank You to everyone who reads my blog, leaves such nice comments here, on flickr on The Felting and Fiber Studio site and everyone at the Felting and Fiber Forum :)

*** It's now available to download straight from the blog, just click the photo on the top right which says 'Instant Download' underneath, or go to the e-books page.

Catch Up

Sorry for not posting anything for a while. I think I've just had too many things going on at once, and I don't know about you, but when I've got so many things I need to do that I don't know where to start, I usually end up putting them off longer! One of the main things I've been working on is getting through my huge pile of WIPs.

As part of my other fabrics and fibres project, I had lots of unfinished pieces waiting to be made into things...unfinished camera pouches, pencil cases, iPod cases, mirror cases, purses, glasses cases... not to mention lots of pieces of felt waiting to be cut and pinned and sewn to add to the pile :)

They are mostly finished now, and one of the biggest tasks was photographing them all. For a while I just had 2 cloths for photographing-a black piece and some natural calico, but after struggling to get a few photos right, my girlfriend suggested using neutral colours like a brown or grey, so it ended up being a mammoth task taking photographs of about 30 felt pieces on 4 different backgrounds, not to mention the fun of going through and deleting all but the best. At least now that Summer is over, the light is better and getting good shots is far easier :)

I even had time to make some felt just for fun recently, which was really nice. I probably went a bit over the top with all the different fibres I blended with the wool and all the different fabric and fibre embellishments I piled on the top, but it was nice to make something that wasn't controlled or being made with anything in mind for a change :)

Have you been working on anything just for fun lately?

Texture

I've been working on a project about using 'other' fibres in felting and noticed that 'texture' has been a common theme lately. I thought I'd post a collection of photos showing different textures from wet felted pieces I've made.

This is a green organza used as a base:

This is the top, strips of organza over blocks of coloured Merino:

This is another organza base, a slightly stiffer gold:

This is a piece of cerise organza:

This is a close up of silk in textured nuno felting:

This is a blue-green piece of textured felt, made with lots of layers and inclusions and felted mostly in the washing machine:

And lastly, this is a piece of texture felt using reds, pinks, oranges and yellow shades:

Do you have any photos of textural felt? How do you like to create it? Do you like to add to your felt to create texture with stitch or other fabrics and fibres? I'd love to see photos of your work :)