Author Archives: Teri Berry

Q3 Challenge Part 3

Before I went to bed last night I laid out some prefelt shapes made from the carded batts, and not one to waste anything, a few of the discs cut from the silk cocoons too.

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I am loving the orange against the blue (I knew I would) but now I am worrying that the colours will all blend together as the piece is fulled. Thinking about it, I have unwittingly managed to include all the primary and secondary colours from the colour wheel except red, I’m quietly praying it doesn’t turn into a muddy brown mess…. 🙁

Starting to fix the design, I rather like how the bubbles and plastic overlay the design underneath, the stark lines are created by the silk cocoon bumps.

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Removing the plastic to rearrange some of the prefelts that have moved while rubbing

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After lots more rubbing and a bit of throwing I gingerly opened up the cocoons, some of them had rotated so that the holes I had so neatly cut to let the dye in were no longer at the top.
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I’m a little bit disappointed the edges to the orange prefelts have gone rather fuzzy (I should have made the prefelt firmer before cutting it up) but I think I can visually sharpen them back up with a bit of machine embroidery.

Some close ups of the felt while it is still drying:

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I love how this cocoon produced a tail of loose silk as I opened it up:

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Next time, adding some embroidery and thinking about how to hang / frame it.

Q3 Challenge Part 2

I have been spending every spare minute working on my challenge piece, and unusually for me, I have been remembering to take lots of photos so you can follow the journey of the piece. In my last post I shared photos of the carded batts and dyed silks and yarns, well, this is story of what became of them…

Laying out a two-tone merino base

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Laying out the batts over the base

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Adding silk cocoons and wetting out the growing pile of fibre to regain some control before adding some strips of hand-dyed silk

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I like the bumps at this stage, it’s like the felt is pregnant and waiting to pop out lots of little felt babies 🙂

Close ups of all the lovely texture

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Adding some yarns to lead the eye around the hanging

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And some splashes of yellow chiffon and a few more bumps

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I made some prefelts out of the left over batts and plan to incorporate those, there’s still a way to go but it’s definitely making progress. Unfortunately an irresistible distraction was waiting for me on the door mat this afternoon, so I’m not sure how much further it will get this evening…

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And none other than our very own Lyn and Annie of Rosiepink have an article in this copy too 🙂

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