Yarny Vessel

A few years ago, I wanted to make a felted vessel for my girlfriend, I had an image in my mind of how I wanted it to be, and I wanted it to be 'perfect', so it took a few attempts, but I was finally happy.

I used two of the practice vessels to make some 'woolly vessels' by needle felting locks onto them. One of them was this white vessel. I needlefelted locks of Angora, Alpaca, Wensleydale, Bluefaced Leicester and Kid Mohair onto it, then put it through the washer to make sure the locks were secure, and because a lot of them were unwashed locks.

Another one I made was this bluey green one, it reminds me of something from under the sea or around the coast. This has dyed locks of Angora, Alpaca, Wensleydale, Devon, Bluefaced Leicester and Kid Mohair. And I used texturey wools like dyed Icelandic and scoured lambswool to secure the locks.

Around the same time, I had the idea for making a really colourful texturey vessel, by needlefelting pieces of handmade yarn and wool twists onto one of my spare practice vessels. I had quite a large stash of handmade yarn and often made wool twists for projects so thought it probably wouldn't take much longer than the other two had. I was wrong! :) It took a lot longer... about 3 years off and on. I probably could have finished it sooner, and I did have phases where I would make up twists and add them, or sit spinning yarn for a few hours then cut it into pieces when it was dry and spend a few hours needling pieces onto the vessel but it never seemed to get any closer to being done! This last weekend, not feeling well enought to tackle my half finished business plan, I decided to try my hardest to finish it. I got out all my left over yarn, stashes of wool blends and a drop spindle and set to work making a big pile of wool twists and a long length of plied yarn to cut up. I also got out my box of very thin felt offcuts and wetted and rubbed some of those to add too. I didn't want to wet the yarn and wait while it hung and dried, so after snipping it into lengths I wet and rubbed one end to 'seal' it and stop it unravelling. After needling all the pieces into the bare parts of the vessel, I finished off around the top, tidying it up and securing the loose fibres. And this is the result:

And then I put it into an old pillow case and put it in the washing machine with a normal load :)  It looked like this:

I unsquashed it and gave it a few shakes and spins, ran my fingers loosely through the twists and yarns (there's a few strips of silk and organza n there too) then sat it on a tub to dry overnight. And this is what it looks like this morning:

I know it's taken me a few years to finish it, but I kind of feel like making another one now! :)

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.

Wet Felted Vessel

I made my first wet felted vessel a few days ago, using a 3D resist I'd made from bubblewrap. Just in case anyone else wanted to get covered in wet wool tops and make as much mess as I did, I made a Photo set on flickr

Today I thought I'd try to make a bowl shaped vessel, I know I've got a rubber football bladder somewhere, but couldn't find it, so I filled a plastic bag up with lots of scrunched up plastic bags, then covered it in packing tape for a resist.

I went a bit too far up with the wool tops, so it was a bit of a struggle to get the partly felted vessel off the resist, and it made it a bit loose too

It soon firmed up as I started to finish the felting by rubbing it inside and out on the bubble wrap

And after rinsing in cold and hot water and fulling by rolling it between my hands it was ready to leave to dry. I'm happy with how it turned out, but I thought felting over a 3D resist would be easy and it isn't, it's messy and fiddly and takes forever. I might just have to see if I have better luck with a flat resist.