Floral Nuno Felted Wrap

Nuno felted silk flowers (up-cycled from a skirt) on custom hand dyed merino, silk, and bamboo fibers.

Wet felted Upholstry Fabric

A thrifted metal chair with a broken seat needed a pick-me-up. The fabric is nuno felted on silk to give it integrity and keep it from stretching too much. The pattern was inspired by an image in the book Gaia Star Mandalas: Ecstatic Visions of the Living Earth by Bonnie Bell and David Todd.

Pebbles and Patchwork

Yesterday, as I was cutting out prefelts to lay the pebbles out on the silk scarves, I swore I would not do anymore polka dots or pebbles. Some people enjoy cutting things out, and more power to them!

The green patchwork wrap needed a fresh photograph, so this morning in the early light it went on the mannequin out on the patio.

The rest of the pre-dawn was taken up loading them into the etsy shop.

What's Missing?

This pair of hand warmers is for my sister, but they look unfinished to me. The beads across the wrist aren't quite enough, but I haven't figured out what else to do with them. Maybe a bit of contrasting color or fabric inside peeking out either at the finger end or the wrist end? Constructive criticism is welcome!

Beaded Nuno Felted Purse

What color is this? I'd hate to have the job naming paint colors! This has some golden dijon mustard, black, and an interesting blue cast. The bling comes from an upcycled beaded skirt, the strap is an upcycled leather belt, and the closure is one of the leather attachments for a pair of men's suspenders.

Celtic Cross, Part II

The colors of the prefelt Celtic cross were dulled by the brown fibers that crept through. The embroidery delineates the design, but I missed the saturated colors from the prefelt. I decided to make another cross to put on the other side of the bag.

The handles are once again an upcycled leather belt. The trim on the top edge of the bag is silk tartan upcycled fabric.

Notice the color of the grass in the background. This August has been terribly hot and dry, even for Texas.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/81693657/celtic-cross-wool-felted-tote-bag

Celtic Cross

The inside layer of wool is white corriedale, andthe middle layer is the multi-colored BFL in Redwood Forest. I hope the colors all show through the white to make a lighter colored interior but still showing the lovely shades of blue, green and brown. The exterior is natural brown with a little blue and green carded in.

I made a length of felt out of the BFL to cut up for the design which I will felt in place. After it is felted the plan is to use the green yarn to add the detail to the Celtic cross. The template for the cross was an image from layeducation.org. By the time the felted project is complete it may not resemble the original at all!

Primary Colors

No, not the book! A red, yellow and blue scarf made from merino wool, silk sari threads, bamboo, and bombyx silk fiber. It's hard to even think about wearing a scarf now that summer has come to Texas. The best part of the heat is the scarf was dry in about 10 minutes after hanging it out on the clothesline.

Sandwiched Felt

After weeks of recuperating I am back to felting. Hooray!

This was an experiment that didn't yield the intended result. I sandwiched wool between a floral upcycled piece of organza silk and a green silk yardage from the fabric store. The floral side is heavily textured, which I like. and the green side has a much finer, tighter texture. What I didn't anticipate was how little drape the overall piece would have once completed. A smaller quantity of roving laid out in the middle might have allowed the silk to drape nicely. Aahh, tomorrow's another day, Scarlett!

The Big Dipper

I embroidered around the stars and added some Austrian crystals to make the night sky pop. The bag is black, navy and white merino wool with some blue silk wet felted around a resist. I haven't decided yet whether to put a flap closure on it or a drawstring or to just leave it open.

Falkland & Shetland Wool Bag With Curly Locks

I love the curly locks on this bag. All of the wool is undyed. The gray is Shetland, the white is Falkland, and the curly locks are Lincoln lamb. There is blue and white upcycled cotton nuno felted in the "window" surrounded by faux pearl beads. The strap is an upcycled leather belt. This bag didn't shrink anywhere near as much as the merino bag in the previous post, which was made on the same mold.

A Work in Progress?

Even though it has a strap and a magnetic closure I'm not sure this bag is done. I've been looking at it for ages without the top folded over and it just wasn't working out. Folding the top over and buttoning it down helped. The strap made it even better. The flower still might get more needle felting. I'm really pleased with the bright yellow happy pocket interior.

St. Patrick's Day Green

Okay, I thought I had finished with this theme of scarves, but with St. Patrick's day right around the corner I had to do just one more in green. This one is wide enough to be a wrap and has lots of tussah silk shot through the white area.

This bag has been sitting on my desk staring at me for ages.It was so plain it was painful! The size and shape were all right, but the design was seriously lacking. Finally I covered the blue felted stripe with a summery cotton batik and added trim around the inside edge and along the handles. I'm not sure if it's finished yet, but it's looking much better.

I want to make a white & green ruffled edge scarf before moving on to a new theme. So far these have been popular, especially white, gray & black.

Spring Ruffled scarves

Spring is still just a glimmer in my imagination, but it is coming! The red oak in the picture hasn't even thought about buds yet. I've started ruffled edge scarves for the next season. All contain merino wool, but yellow and the two with the white centers also contain tussah silk. The black edged one has gray yak fiber mixed in, and the lavender, yellow, and turquoise contain bamboo fiber. All are felted with Dr. Bronner's organic soap.

Spring on the Horizon

I've been thinking about spring colors, soft ruffles, and clutch bags in white with bright candy colored pops of color. The bags are going to have cotton batik inside. So far I've only put the materials to make a form to shape the bag on. I did do one pastel ruffled scarf and one bright blue cobweb felt scarf. The pink is merino, bamboo & tussah silk, and the blue is merino & bombyx silk. A yellow ruffled edge scarf is laid out and ready to roll next, and then on to the bags!

It's been a busy week. I nuno felted another tote bag and found a straw bag at a thrift shop that had great leather handles. They've been repurposed onto my felt tote. The bag is lying in snow, which is probably why I managed to make two scarves and two bags. On the rare occasions it snows in North Texas you may as well stay in because the roads will are terrible.

The bag with the metal handles has the silk nuno felted on the outside so you can see the bead work. Both bags have pockets felted inside.

All of these natural colors in the bags I've made recently had me craving color, so I made one in shades of aqua that shouts. The other one is shibori dyed in an organic green dye.

Another Organic Earth-tone Bag

This was felted with undyed merino batts on upcycled silk organza. The outside has silk hankies felted in, but the sheen of the silk was lost in all of the wool fiber. The silk hankies are cobweb fine. The strap is a repurposed leather belt laced in place beneath the folded over part. There is almost a pound of wool in this large tote bag!

The lady who bought it is planning to use it as her BSF bag to carry her three ring binder and bible to class.

Dyed Wool Versus Undyed Wool

I've noticed something really interesting about dyed wool versus natural wool. It is just like going to the beauty salon and coloring you hair. The coloring treatment leaves your hair super shiny and smooth. Natural wool fibers smooth out when they are dyed. I have found it much easier to create a super fine cobweb felt using dyed fiber. The natural wool has more crimp left in each fiber and when felted it makes the finished textile bulkier.