Category Archives: felt clothing

Tweedy Jacket

Since Wednesday I have been working on a new jacket using the felt tweed technique Galina posted a link to on the Forum, after making a couple of samples last week, I dove in, designing a template from an old coat. Even using dress-making paper, it was a struggle to get the expanded template to fit on the sheet.

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Laying out 2 layers of merino over a resist for the torso:

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Adding the yarns, this was quite a challenge, especially when I came to flip it over and had all the long lengths from the back, that would be used to decorate the front, got into a bit of a tangled mess. After some patient de-tangling it all came good in the end…

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The sleeves were somewhat easier (no resist involved).

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And the (nearly) finished jacket, all sewn up. It just needs a couple of buttons (nothing in my button tin suits this jacket) and possibly straightening the bottom edge; currently the front right hand side (left hand side of the photo) hangs slightly lower than the left. What do you think? Asymmetrical clothing appears to be back in fashion but I’m not sure this qualifies, does it just look a bit untidy?

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Given that all the yarns I used were synthetic (mostly acrylic) I was impressed by how well they embedded into the felt, there a just a handful of small loops that I will stitch down by hand.

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A close up of all the lovely textures!

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Tweedy Samples

Over on the Felting and Fiber Forum,  Frances and Galina have been posting about some new “scribbly” scarves  as I like to think of them. They are made from wool yarns, and led to a discussion about using up some of my admittedly excessive (don’t tell my other half I’m admitting to that!) stash of yarns from the days when I used to crochet. Most of my yarns however are either acrylic or polyester based rather than wool, making me doubt that I could get them to felt.

Galina posted this incredible link to Irena Levkovich’s work, creating amazing felt garments that look like they are woollen tweed.

So how could I resist, I still want to have another go at making a bolero jacket that fits me better….

These are my test samples:

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I included some polyester eyelash yarn on the white and blue sample, just out of curiosity to see how it would behave…

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It produced an interesting, highly textured effect but it rather detracts from the tweedy quality I was aiming for and I do wonder if the loops it formed would catch and pull if I tried to make a garment with it.

Overall I these samples were a success and I’m itching to work on something bigger! I am attending a workshop with Rutsoku Sakata Monday and Tuesday next week, so I will have to be patient and resign myself to just planning the jacket until Wednesday…