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.

Nuno Felted Ombre Burnout Silk

These need to be rephotographed because the ombre silk is washed out in the bright sunlight. However, this is made from upcycled burnout ombre silk and black merino wool. The edges are slightly ruffled.

Mondrian Felted Silk Scarf

I cut silk fabric into squares and rectangles in a Mondrian inspired pattern. Then I laid out the wool out on both sides where the fabric meets, orienting the fiber so the silk would pucker into a ruffle. In the photo the white square looks pale blue, but it actually pops a bit more in person.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/82655162/mondrian-inspired-blue-silk-and-wool

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.

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.

Handbag for a Friend

This was a gift I made for a friend. The inside of the bag is white and the exterior is black, but felted together it looks gray. I sandwiched some assorted brown fiber in between layers so they would peek out where I snipped the surface with scissors. The wool is merino and the handle is an upcycled belt.

Summer Handbags With a Pop of Color

I had a bag full of seashells that I've wanted to incorporate into a felted bag. I thought about felting a face and using the shells for eyes, but the lavender color might have looked either creepy or vacant. Anyway, I like them just as plain shells with some art yarn scribbled around them.

The cotton batik inside really pops. I think I will make a bunch of these handbags in different bright colors just because they make me happy.

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.

Here's an inspiration photo and a project in progress photo for comparison. The flower still needs some attention before I wet felt it. This will be a handbag when it's done. The wool underneath the green is a natural buff color which will work its way through. Maybe a bit of dark brown in the background will make the flower pop?

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.

Quilted Felt

I didn't originally intend to quilt the polka dots on the bag. The merino wool is nuno felted onto red silk and the red dye ran and tinged the white pink! The pink and brown didn't look very good, so I felted a piece of white with brown polka dots. The dots are the same color brown as the bag, but I put the darker side in to make it look more interesting. But I was afraid the white would slide around if I only sewed the perimeter, so the obvious solution was to quilt each dot, anchoring the white in place.

The handles are belts that have been repurposed into handles.

I like larger bags like this to have a flat bottom so you can set them on the floor without them falling over.

Felted Purses

Here are three of the purses I made for the Denton Craft Show. They all are inspired by nature. Pebbles in a riverbed, the littoral area at the beach, and a birch tree. The birch tree is nuno felted on linen.

More Cobweb Felt Scarves

I love the sheen the bombyx adds to the matte merino wool on these cobweb felt scarves. Everything is getting polka dots these days. It must be polka dot season.

Normally I only make one of a kind items, but I just had to keep this scarf so I made another one like it to sell at the DHS craft fair in Denton, TX. The wool was dip dyed and ranges from a bright scarlet to a deep burgundy. The polka dots are prefelt laid on top of the red roving.