Etsy

I've opened an Etsy shop :)

There isn't much there at the moment, but there are a few silk fibre packs. They are packs of aproximately 20g each of natural silk hankies; silk carrier rods; silk noil and gummed silk throwster's waste. I got a shock when I looked up postage prices! I always wanted to be able to offer reasonably priced fabrics and fibres, but the price of postage has shot up recently. If you're in the UK it might just be cheaper to call round for them :)

Silk carrier rods are odd, ugly looking things! But once they are soaked in water and the layers are separated they make great embellishments for felt or mixed media. Like any silk fibres, they can be dyed too. They look like coloured foil to me. I've even carded them and felted the 'fluff'.

Silk Throwster's waste really doesn't look much at first, stiff and nylony, like tangled dolls hair! But once it has been degummed it is soft, fluffy, shiny and crimped.

 It's easy to dye too, and looks gorgeous once it's felted. It spins well too.

Silk noil has great texture. Soft but with nubby bits that feel a bit like oats :) It smells nice and even has a nice sound when it's separated. You can use it to create subtle interest and texture or use it more densely and it will have the appearance of a fabric.

Silk hankies are one of the most popular silk fibres for using with felting. They can be used whole as a single layer:

Or more than one layer for more  texture:

 Or you can draft them into roving and use smaller pieces for different effects:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/FeltbyZed

New things

Vessels

I recently tried using a bladder from the inside of a ball as a resist for making vessels. I took photos of all the stages to add to my flickr set of Making a Wet Felted Vessel with a 3D Resist. Here are a couple of vessels I made using the bladder.

Silk Carrier Rods

Not so long ago, I bought some silk carrier rods from World of Wool, I'd looked at them when I went to their shop, but they were such ugly, stiff, papery things that I couldn't see how I'd use them. Ruth from the Felting Forum convinced me to give them a go, and since they're only £2.50 for 100g (large bag) , I thought it was worth a try.

If I wasn't impressed by the way they looked, I was less impressed with their smell :)

Luckily after soaking in lukewarm water the smell went, and they were easy to split into layers:

There were some scruffly, straggly bits that came off, but I saved these bits up and when they were dry, I pulled them apart and carded them.

A couple of weeks ago, I dyed the silk rods that I'd separated:

I used a few pieces on projects, but wanted to see how they looked individually, to get a better idea of how usefull they'll be. So I ironed a few pieces to flatten them, then layed them on some black merino.

I was pleasantly surprised by the results, I never expected them to turn out quite so shiny, they really look metallic, like crinkled coloured foil, and were very hard to photograph because of that. I have a few more before felting and close up photos on flickr

Sorry about random gaps between text and photos, or no gaps between text and photos, the stupid site has a mind of its own.