Sticky Paws Blog

I know I said yesterday that I wouldn’t blow my trumpet anymore, but I am again very pleased with another scarf I made today.  Several years ago my friend showed some of my scarves to a friend of hers who is a very good textile artist, who thought my scarves were good (they were actually too heavy) but would look lovely with a scallop edge.  Well despite several attempts I had never been able to achieve this effect, but whilst nodding off last night I had a light bulb moment.  If I put semi circles around the edge of the scarf instead of full circles as in the previous post, would this create a scallop edge……….

Several days ago I found some silk (in my stash) from Treetops Colours in the rhubarb colour way.  Whilst deciding what colours to use on a purple silk chiffon scarf I realised the treetops’ silk was purple, ‘weld’ green and salmon pink.  Now I like to use strong colours but would never have thought to put purple and salmon pink together but the result is absolutely amazing.  I placed the fibre on the scarf and felted it as in my previous post again placing silk that I had dyed with weld around the merino semi circles.

…………and the result is scalloped edges.

Nuno Felted Scarf with a Scallop Edge

Scallop Edge Close Up

You will have to forgive me for this post as I am going to blow my own trumpet.  It won’t happen very often as I don’t have alot of self confidence and feel I have more felting passion than talent, but this scarf turned out exactly as I wanted it to and I am ‘uber’ pleased with it.

I placed rings of merino fibre onto the scarf and placed a circle of weld dyed silk around the merino ring.  I kept the inside of the rings free of fibre but covered the rest of the scarf with merino and silk.  I felted the scarf using rolling and throwing techniques and when rinsed and dried carefully ironed the flat areas leaving the little puffs unironed.  I am sooooooo pleased with how this scarf turned out

Nuno Felted Pongee Silk Scarf

Pongee Silk Scarf Close Up

Unfortunately my photography really doesn’t do this scarf justice.

A little while back I blogged about a workshop I ran with my felting friends Miriam and Marina.  We made nuno resist felted waistcoats but had to finish them at home.  Marina sent me her waistcoat as she was disappointed with how the waistcoat had felted in places - there were several places where the black silk chiffon was showing through the felting.  I like it when the base fabric bubbles up through the top layer and in fact try to place my fibre to achieve this look, but I can appreciate how annoying it is when your felting hasn’t quite turned out as you expected.

I wasn’t really sure how I was going to cover the silk chiffon with more fibre as the waistcoat had been quite well felted, so I decided to needle felt more fibre to the chiffon using my Huskystar embellisher.  I then wetted the new fibre with soapy water and rubbed the ‘new’ areas with bubblewrap.  As the waistcoat had been thrown to harden it, I then slapped the ‘new’ areas against a work surface to try to emulate the ‘thrown’ felting.

Resist Felted Nuno Vest

Close Up

I was quite pleased how this process worked.  Once a piece of felt has been hardened it is quite difficult to correct any ‘mistakes’.  I would love to know any hints or tips you have for rescueing felt which hasn’t turned out quite as planned.  And please remember a ‘disaster’ to you may be fab to someone else.  I once took a scarf to a craft fair that I hated - it was the first item I sold!

Earlier this month I finally managed to do some felting using the weld dyed silk from a previous post.  I have been wanting to try pongee silk for ages and was amazed how easy pongee silk 5 felts.  I placed merino tops and silk on a pongee silk scarf and felted it in exactly the same way as I would with silk chiffon.

Pongee Silk Scarf

Close up of Pongee Silk Scarf

 I also felted another pongee scarf with ‘bands’ of merino and silk.

Pongee Silk Scarf 2

Close up Pongee Silk Scarf 2

Last weekend Miriam and Marina, who have attended all my workshops, joined me in nuno felting a resist vest.  This was also a first for me and was again something I have wanted to do but have ‘resisted’ (no pun intended) as it takes alot of space.   However, as there were only three of us there was loads of space and we decided to have a go.  Felting a garment is a completely different ball game - apart from needing lots of space, it takes alot of time laying out and wetting out the fibre and then the garment is very heavy.  Due to sheer exhaustion on all our parts we abandoned throwing our vests and look them home to finish.   The next day I finished hardening my vest and rinsed it and spun it in the washing machine.  I am really pleased with the result.

Nuno Resist felted Vest

Close up of Vest