Sampling

On my last post I showed a nuno felt piece I'd made using various wool tops I got in a recent bag of Botany Lap Waste from World of Wool. It became obvious that not all were Merino or even 100% wool, so I thought I'd try some samples. The first one is the kind of Royal Blue from the back of the nuno piece. I'd had a feeling at the time it might not be Merino, but it's surprising how different various tops can feel and even look when you use lots of different ones together, even when they're all 23 mic Merino. I know sometimes it's because they're old and a bit dry, but I think it has something to do with the dyes too:

The staple length was really long, and it wasn't exactly coarse, but wasn't as soft as Merino, so I'm guessing it's Corriedale. This is on an angle:

Some other tops I got were obviously not Merino or Corriedale. I'm going to guess at Shetland, because WoW don't do many different breeds of dyed tops, and because it looks similar to some green Shetland I got:

It looks different on a different background:

You can see on the close up it's coarser and hairier than the previous one:

I don't think I used this next one on my nuno piece either, but it was very similar to the turquoise I used on the back. It was obvious straight away that this was never going to felt:

It's just two very loosely holding together layers, holding together more by tangling of a few fibres rather than felting, I think, slight angle:

It's not even pretending to hold together at one end, where it started to 'drip' when I held it up wet:

And this is what it looks like at the window:

This was the turquiose sample. It was the lighter blue stripes on the back of the large piece, and I used it in patches in a couple of places. Not surprisingly, it felted, or didn't felt, in exactly the same way as the purple sample I tried:

It even separated at one end like the purple piece did:

This is how it looked at the window:

I don't know what these tops could be, the only similar experience I've had to this is trying to felt Suri Alpaca locks, but they did at least stay together, if loosely. Superwash has been suggested, but I don't think they do dyed Superwash or put it in the Botany Waste. Before I tried felting any of the Botany Lap waste tops, I'd tried spinning some. It was only the 2nd time I'd used my wheel, so thought the trouble I was having was beginner's issues and also because I was trying tops. My first attempt had been from blended batts I'd drum carded and was much easier. I'd always planned on using the spun yarn for weaving anyway, so used some on one piece:

I've separated them all now for spinning and to try using them as I would embellishment fibres. If you're interested in embellishment fibres, have a look at The Felting and Fiber Studio today for a giveaway of my e-book The Right Fibre.

Another Bag and Some Weaving

If you're anything like me, when you get the sewing machine and felt and/or fabric scraps out, you end up with stuff absolutely everywhere and a huge mess to tidy away afterwards which takes so long you start to consider whether you really need to use that room again or if you can get away with shutting the door on the mess forever. I usually try to make the most of it and do as many sewing projects as I can all in one go and live with the mess in the mean time. After making the satchel type bag, I had some good sized off cuts left over so thought I'd make myself another bag. This one is 'passport bag' size. This is what it looks like from the front with the flap closed:

And this is what it looks like with the flap open - I used magnetic closures again:

 The felt piece I used for the flap is at least 4 years old, one of those pieces you make for fun and put 'in the box' until you find the perfect use for it. Weirdly after using it on the bag, I was watching Neighbours (an Aussie soap, for those who don't know) and a character was wearing a jacket, just like my bag flap!

I did a bit of spindle spinning and then weaving recently. I thought it'd be nice for fairs or the well being classes to show how hand woven yarn can be used. This first one was made with fairly neat (by my standards, anyway) yarn, just single ply, and I didn't wet and set the twist or anything, just wound it onto an old broom handle from the spindle. I wove it on a little kids loom I bought:

A closer look:

I was doing some of the weaving at night watching Parks and Recreation and thought I was using all naturals, but it was obvious in daylight I'd used some yarn I made ages ago from hand dyed Merino (green over orang, I think), but I think it matches alright.

Since not everyone has a loom handy, I thought I'd make a few pieces with cardboard looms, so I cut some rectangles and then marked out sections and cut notches in the bottom. I also used some yarn I'd made from my carding scraps - the really wiry, scruffy, short and matted bits - and some coarser wools like Herdwick (the bits I used looked like unpicked Brillo pads) and a couple I got from Wollknoll which look like shredded wheat - to show that yarn, and weaving, can still look good even if you don't make smooth, even yarn. This is a tall one I made:

That's a dried pepper keeping it flat, I'll probably have to wet and block some of these becasue they want to curl! Close up:

Closer:

This is a really small one I made:

A close up:

This is the larger of the cardboard looms I made:

And this is a photo of the loom above with a smaller cardboard loom (it already has the warp thread wound on it) and how they compare to the kids’ loom I have. That is probably smaller than A4/printer paper: