Dutch and Russian Wool

I got some 'Yellowish Dutch Wool' from wollknoll, 34 mic 'not suitable for felting', it said. It seemed to felt fine for me:

I don't know what breed it is, I'd guess Texel, maybe someone who's bought it knows? Here's a close up of a corner:

I thought I'd try a variety of fibres again, so the top row is a blend of black Viscose tops and Ingeo, the narrow band in the middle is Fake Angora, and the bottom is black Bamboo and White Bamboo blended.

Different angle:

This is a close up of the Viscose and Ingeo:

And close up of the fake Angora (it has a strange feel to it, and looks kind of waxy):

Another vaguely listed wool I bought was 'Russian-Camelhair'. I'm guessing from the way they describe things on wollknoll, that 'Camelhair' is the colour, it's more reddish though. And this is also 34 mic but 'This wool is especially suitable for felting'. Another guess is that this is Romanov wool. It seems to be double coated like a lot of the ones I ordered. I used Ramie fibre with this:

The circular parts are Ramie that I fluffed up then patted down into little discs:

This is a close up of Ramie just fluffed up and added:

The sun came out as I was taking this, I usually try not to take photos in the sun, but I liked this one:

Over on The Felting and Fiber Studio site, our challenges this year are all going to be based around colour. The first quarter challenge had us looking at the colour wheel, tints and shades and blending. I had some 'Hot Pink' Merino wool tops, quite a lot actually, so I used them with white Merino and black Merino to see what blends I would get. You can read the whole post here and see the batt I made.

New Notebook Cover

I thought I'd make myself a cover for a ring binder notebook I've started using for notes about batts, fibre packs and etsy listings. I made a piece of felt a few weeks ago from merino and embellishment fibre blends. I used lots of different fibres: Milk Protein fibre, Hemp, Flax, Ramie, Banana, Bamboo top and fibre; Viscose top and fibre, Trilobal nylon, Acrlic laps, Plastic fibre and Egyptian cotton. This is the whole piece after felting:

I recently made another notebook and made the straps to go through the Delrin clips from felt, and it looked really nice, so I thought I'd do the same for this one. This is the front:

It took hours to sew (at least 9 episodes of Hawaii Five - 0!) because I machine stitched the straps into place on the back, but hand sewed everything else and finished off the edges with blanket stitch.

I left the natural felt edge for the front inside flap.

I cut the back flap to size and used the offcuts for the straps.

Natural Wools and Fibres (3)

I recently got some gorgeous brown Finnish wool tops and some dark brown Corriedale tops from World of Wool, so thought I'd try them out with some 'other' fibres. Usually, I'll just try one fibre with a particular wool first, but I couldn't decide which fibre to try with the Finnish first, so thought I'd try a few. I really liked how this turned out. From Top to Bottom, the fibres are: Banana Fibre; Soybean fibre; Ingeo; Flax; Milk protein fibre; Hemp and Ramie. They were all in the form of tops.

With the dark brown Corriedale, I used some white cotton gauze

It was only meant as a test sample, but I really liked the way it looked in a frame:

And just for a change, I tried some felted soap. I've never been much good at this, the soap shrinks faster than the wool and it always seems loose. Lyn from Rosiepink, helped me out with instructions and this turned out quite well.

I've noticed that since Blogger has that Carousel/slide show thing when pictures are clicked on, you don't get a large picture anymore. If you right click on the photo in the carousel, choose 'properties' you can get the URL for the full sized photo. Copy and paste in a new tab for a big photo.

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 :)

Felt Lamp Shade

Hello :)

Sorry I haven't posted recently, I just didn't have the time for felting for a while and then lacked inspiration and motivation.

I spent ages recently trying to find some nice lamp shades, but wasn't impressed with any I saw. So I just ended up buying some very plain ones. I love the way the vessel I made for my girlfriend looks when there's a tealight inside, so I decided to try to make my own shades with felt and hoped they'd look as good.

I made a piece of felt by laying out two fine layers of merino, then a fine layer of curly wools and locks (angora, wensleydale, mohair, bluefaced leicester) then a top layer of fine merino and finished off with silks, ramie and bamboo.

I made a template from the lampshade I'd bought and wanted to cover, and cut out the shape I needed from my felt. I blanket stitched around the edges, then sewed the two seems together. It fits snuggly over the top of the shade, and looks great when the light is shining through :)

For a quick guide on how to make one, visit my flickr page