Progress in the garden.. and a felting play day :)

Yesterday saw a return of wintery weather here.. we had snow - with MASSIVE flakes and hail, rain spells and very strong winds all day.  The kids had pressing things to do inside (in the warm!) and Gary quite happily carried on with his project.. finished off this morning by adding the stone chips.  I am really happy with it.. think he has done a lovely job :)

I really should take the pegs off the line BEFORE taking a photo lol

We can't introduce the fishies to their new home until May, when it is warmer.. but that gives us time to set everything up, fill it and let the water settle :)

While all of this was going on I got to PLAY!!  I had been picturing a light, airy poncho.. slightly asymetrical..  the shrinkage has made the finished piece a bit less asymetrical than I had planned.. but I'm really pleased with it. 



Orange and pink (I'm liking this colour combo at the moment)



What I am NOT pleased with is how much the colour run out of the silk! This is a really lovely vintage silk sari - its so sheer its an absolute DREAM for nuno! But I have never had colour run out so badly.. it just keeps on coming out as long as its wet.  Even using cold water (my hands are still orange today - looks like I have been henna'd). I will wear this... and hope like heck that I don't get caught in the rain or I will be orange!  But I couldnt use it to make for anybody else..

At the moment I dont see how I can make use of this lovely sari unless I can find a way to fix the dye... if anybody has any suggestion or experience with this PLEASE, I would LOVE to hear from you..  I hate the thought of this lovely silk sitting unused in my fabric bag forevermore..

xx

Experimental Felting #3 Going BIGGER

Firstly apologies about any odd spacing in this post, or html type rubbish - blogger is having a mad one and after about 1/2 hour trying to get this look right - I'm giving up and going to cook dinner!

Its been a while.. but continuing the story of my experementation using the tumble drier as a tool to make nuno felting less back breaking..

My most exciting discovery was how brilliantly it worked nuno felting onto synthetic organza!  After the smaller sample piece I jumped right into felting a shawl...

Started by carding some lovely batts.. you cant really see it but theres loads of silk and a good sprinkling of firestar twinkling away in this :)

I laid it out on the floor 'cos it was 3m x 1 m..

Piece of plastic sheeting allowed me to add extra bits for the collar and bottom fringe detail (which I cut out part way through)

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Plastic wrapped & rolled in an old towel - tied up nice and secure. 

 I chucked it in the tumble drier on no-heat for 20 minutes

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After 20 minutes you can already see the organza starting to pucker.  Wrapped & rolled it up & put it in for another tumble

You can see  how well the fibres have come through the organza here - worked a treat!
This was after 50 to 60 minutes tumbling - which is all it took

Just to make doubly sure that the fibres were evenly through I gently ran a rubber-gloved hand over the organza side (this helps the fibres through)

Now it was time to get physical :) Heat, vigorous rolling & throwing you name it - I did it.  To finish I ran the wool side over my well soaped ridged plastic roller tray - this tightens the felt up nicely.

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Finished!

My dear friend & fellow Woolgatherer Brenda found me a torso for displaying shawls on :)  Isnt she a treasure?! 

So there you go thats my final 'Experimental Felting' post ..... until the next time I get curious

xx

Experimental Felting #2

Following on from yesterday, I promised to show you my latest bargain felting tool.. it may not be pretty, but my goodness does it do the job?!

Industrial painters roller tray £4 from B&Q, makes a fantastic alternative to a washerboard!

I have an Ashford wooden washerboard, which I rarely use (the woodgrain swole up on its first use making it far to rough to use without covering it in thick plastic first - a real pain).  Glass washerboards cost about £30, so this alternative is a real bargain.  The ridged part is at just the right angle, and the paint trough is perfect for dipping the felt in while you work - its a washerboard & mini sink all in one :).

I did find a few snaggy bits around the edge which I flattened by heating them briefly with a lighter flame and pressing flat with the back of a teaspoon.

Back to the nuno scarf.. 

Once the fibres had migrated through the silk well I added heat, rolled it by hand for a while, then tossed it to get the lovely nuno texturing of the silk chiffon.

Stood on a towel it doesnt slide around while you rub.
I personally prefer it to a washerboard!

Once I was happy with the texture I ran it over my ridged roller-tray to really tighten up the felt.



All finished. 
When first laid out this measured 7feet x 45cm.. finished it measures 4.5feet x 20cm

This still took quite a few hours to make with the time spent laying out & finishing by hand (not counting drier time) using the tumble drier to replace most of the rolling made it physically a much easier job.  I dont plan to do any more nuno scarves in silk chiffon using this method..simply because I find that wool fibres travel through silk chiffon easily with the normal rolling method, and I like to use as little electricity as possible.

BUT...  my second experiment was with synthetic organza which takes forever for the fibres to catch hold of with the traditional rolling.  I have to say I was very suprised & thrilled to bits with this experiment; using the tumble drier the fibres worked through synthetic organza faster than they did the silk chiffon!

When it came out of the tumbler I treated my sample piece the same as the scarf above, heat + tossing then rubbing on ridged roller-tray.  I was left with a very pretty & sturdy piece of nuno.. that I just HAD to make something from



So, I machine stitched around the flower petals to define them and
turned it into a pretty & ethereal clutch bag

I have been BURSTING for weeks and weeks to do some freemotion embroidery onto my felt.  Actually, its been on my 'to do' list for about 3 years now..ever since I first saw Helen Melvins (Fiery Felts) landscapes.  I would love to go on a workshop with Helen..hopefully one day..

More recently RosiePink's beautiful wallhangings, and the adventures of many blog friends have rekindled the desire.  Just over a month ago I managed to find and order a freemotion foot to fit my machine.. it had to come from Texas USA to the UK, and unfortunately it still hasnt found its way here.  The seller is lovely though and has just refunded me.  I have now found the same foot in the UK and repurchased it (why couldnt I find it a month ago?!).. hope the postman doesnt lose this one.  Until it gets here I am making do with my normal open toe foot for my decorative stitching (my machine missed stitches without a foot).

After making this clutch I was left with a decent sized offcut.. so decided to play some more :)

Normal pin fastner sewn onto the back. 
I originally fancied this as a closure for a shawl..



..but it works much better as a companion for the clutch I think.

Next time.. my experiments got even BIGGER :)

TTFN xx

Experimental felting... #1

I have to confess to being extremely curious!  And just being told that something works is not enough for me.. I have to try it myself - cant settle till I have.  This has led to some funny situations in the past believe me..  This time my curiosity was piqued by reading about people using a tumble drier as a felting tool.  Not something I have ever done before..  The curiosity became unbearable when I heard about it being used to speed up nuno felting! 

... you may recall the large nuno shawls that I made earlier in the year - they took, what seemed, an eternity of rolling (many, many hours over 2 days) to get the fibres to migrate through the fabric.  I had no plans to felt any more of these shawls, even though I LOVE the way they turned out, because they took so darned long - and near killed my back!

Some experimentation was in order.. so I googled and found this excellent tutorial on Treetops Colour Harmonies website.. and followed it :)

For my first experiment I used silk chiffon to make a nuno scarf - using a lot less wool than I usually do:

Used a piece of the silk chiffon I dyed a couple of weeks ago

Didnt have a clear idea of the design when I started.. it just 'grew'.  I got quite carried away and spent 3 or 4 hours in a very zen like state laying out the pattern :) ..only realised how long I had taken because I got hungry - I was 1 1/2 hours late for a meal!

 

Wetted out with cold soapy water





Decorators plastic layed on top



Edges folded in to 'seal the parcel' and rolled around a damp towel

Dry towel rolled around the outside, then tied up nice and tight.

Then into the tumble drier it went - on a no-heat settling, for 15 minutes.  Then, like with normal felting, unroll & straighten, then re-roll from the opposite direction.  Back in the tumble drier for another 15 minutes.  This was repeated rolling from all 4 sides, though for the final 2 sides I only did 10 minute tumbles - this was plenty.

After all this bumping & tumbling the fibres had migrated through the silk beautifully.. and was ready for heat and throwing - this is the bit that I like.. the magic nuno moment when you get the lovely texture. 

I had also prepared a sample sized piece with synthetic organza to see how this behaved & tumbled it at the same time (this only took 3 tumbles!)

I am going to leave it there though for today.. Tomorow I shall show you how it turned out, what became of the synthetic sample piece AND my new bargain must have felting tool!

xx

Felt and Materials

More recent felt to share :) Couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I have been asked to send some shawls upto Woolfest with Classic Carders (for their display & for sale).  I had a grand old time carding up lots of yummy batts on their newly teaked design Jumbo Carder.  Here are 2 shawls made from them.  These shawls are a little heavier than most of my shawls.. really snuggly & warm.  I made beaten copper wire pins to go with them, using a couple of pretty beads salvaged from broken necklaces... my mom gave me a pot of them for Christmas :)  They are coming in very useful.

Used my favourite aubergene pure silk velvet (strips torn from it anyway) for the sirface design

 

Lots of silk in this one.  I pulled a silk cap into roving and used it to 'draw' on one side.  Used some pretty green BFL locks too for texture



Had an unfortunate incident with this green one.  For what is now the inside I had planned a swirl of silk leaves blowing across... all was going well; I had cut lots of lovely leaf shapes from a dyed silk cap and scattered them across the laid out shawl.  Unfortunately my brain must of gone to sleep while I did this 'cos I laid them down BEFORE wetting the merino, of course when I sprinkled water over it most of them distored out of shape.  The leaves were so delicate that there was no chance of lifting them and pulling back into shape.  So now the inside just has an abstract silk pattern in it... which is fine it still looks nice enough. 

I do learn from my mistakes though.. I made a little summer scarf from a pretty blue batt (with masses of silk in) I peeled extremely thin layers and laid in on white silk chiffon.. then cut some silk fish shapes.  And remembered to wet out before putting them in place :)



Silk fish swimming upstream

I loved using this silk chiffon, it felted in SO easily.  The picture on the top right of the collage shows the silk side.  I decided to dye a load and offer it in my Folksy shop in scarf length pieces - scarf length for nuno felting that is - 2 meters long by about 45cm.  I had a peacock blue dye bath going earlier this week, after I'd dyed everything that I intended to there was still quite a bit of dye left in the pot - so I dropped in a scarf length to exhaust the bath.  Its turned out a really delicate light peacock blue.. 

dyed silk chiffon for nuno felting

Today I placed a 10kg wholesale fibre order that I am planning to dye up.  I'll be keeping some for my own stash, but lots will be finding its way into my shop.  The only thing I havent figured out yet is just where all of this extra fibre is going to live...lol

The kids broke up for half term today (off again already?!)  so there shant be much work going on here next week!  Gary has next week off too - I'm looking forward to some nice family time, lets hope the sun shines and it doesnt rain.

Hope you have a good bank holiday weekend whatever you are planning

xx