Author Archives: Teri Berry

New Nunofelt Top Design

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A couple of weeks ago a friend from my day job approached me and asked if I would make a top for her. We had a bit of chat about what colours she liked and what shape the top would have. She was clearly besotted with the dress I was wearing at the time:

This front panel of this dress is parfait dyed haboti silk. This became the basis of her top.

Instead of just having a panel of silk we thought it would be interesting to cover the entire top with silk so I set about dyeing a few metres of haboti in similar colours to the dress:

Then set about laying out the silk and wool over a template cut to Karin’s measurements.

The wool colours were graduated from white at the top to chocolate brown at the bottom.
After lots of rolling, massaging and throwing, the wool started to contract and the silk puckered.

I added a few darts to help with the shaping, these photos were taken at the second fitting, I think it looks beautiful already but will add a couple more small darts around the collar.

I’m chuffed to bits with how this top has turned out. The silk has the most beautiful sheen (the photos really don’t do it justice) that gives the top a luxurious look without being “in your face” bling. I’m already planning a purple version as a Christmas present to myself, and Karin has asked for another with a 3/4 length sleeve… I guess I will be a little busy for the next few weeks!

Wishing you all a wonderful, woolly Christmas and Happy New year!

Kittens Playing in the Twilight

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Last weekend I started work on a long-sleeved top, Galina (aka Felicity) very helpfully suggested this site on the Felting and Fibre Forum as a possible solution to the “baggy armpit” problem I encountered with my jacket.

It looked like an interesting approach so I gave it a go.

laying out the first layer of roving over some dyed cotton scrim

Adding the sleeves

This was where it started to become challenging, although I had laid out the wool on the inside of the sleeve before laying it on the body, I had to carefully fold plastic between the layers of wool, cotton and resist to prevent the front of the sleeve felting to the back and closing the armholes.

Adding some prefelt kittens

The colour of the wool reminded me of the light you get at twilight so I added some playful kitten silhouettes. By adding the black trim along the bottom this longish top became a short dress but I think it looks great with a pair of black leggings and knee-high boots.

This is the wool I used, it contains a small amount of white tussah silk so the finished dress has a subtle sheen to it.

The new sleeve method didn’t really work as planned; there were several holes where the sleeves joined the body when I first remove the resist. Not a big problem, a little bit of needle felting soon resolved that.
No matter how much I worked and fulled the armpits the arm holes were ENORMOUS. I had to resort to lots of tucks and darts to make the dress fit. It was a lot more work than I expected but I think it was worth it in the end and the colour is a delightful bluish purple.

All is not lost though, Nada posted another option for making sleeves on the forum, so that will keep me out of mischief over Crimbo 🙂