Category Archives: wet felting

Lest We Forget

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I am feeling very chuffed, one of the pieces I submitted to the Weavers, Spinners and Dyers National Exhibiton has been accepted. Fancy that, a feltmaker being accepted to a juried show of weaving and dyeing!

I have been itching to share this piece with you for several weeks but couldn’t in case one of the jurors saw it.

This piece was inspired from a combination of some sketches I made of poppy seed pods from the garden and the realisation that 2014 is the centenary of the start of World War I.

They all cried out a very obvious vase shape to me:

Initially I planned to make this vase using a resist method but then I had a brainwave and thought of a way to interpret my willow weaving skills into felt and after a small test piece, created “Lest We Forget”. The vase shape was woven from cords of white merino and then dyed with acid dyes.

This is the work in progress:

The red and black colours were chosen as the traditional colours of the poppy flower but they also represent the unnecessary blood shed and millions of deaths that occurred not only during WWI but in countless wars since.

If you would like to see this piece in person, it will be on display at “Yarns in the Cathedral” in the Hostry of Norwich Cathedral from 15 May to 1 June 2014.

Linking up to nina-marie

slippers!

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This is something I have been wanting to make for months and I finally took the plunge and ordered some gotland wool a few weeks ago. Gotland is one of the courser wools and is reputed to be hard-wearing, hence very good for making shoes and bags. I was planning to use a simple heart-shaped template for my slippers but then I saw this post by Nada on Felting and Fiber Studio and knew I had to try her template instead!

Sorry, I forgot to take pictures while laying out the wool and felting but I used 2 layers of deep purple merino on the inside and 2 layers of grey gotland on the outside, rolled 200 times before cutting the resist out.

I rubbed with warm soapy water, inside and out for a few more minutes before inserting shoe lasts* and popping them in the washing machine.

Here are the slippers after fulling:

I was glad I opted to put the decoration on after fulling, as with the yellow pod, the gotland completely overwhelmed the purple merino.

And after adding some needle felted decoration (I used some spaced dyed prefelt for this):

They are very comfy but could do with some non-slip treatment on the soles, while it is fun “skating” round the house on our wooden floors I know it is only a matter of time before I hurt myself….

*My shoe lasts were made using the cheap and cheerful method from Ruth Lanes’ book– this is a fantastic reference guide for all things felt and it will save you the cost of buying shoe lasts so is a bargain! If you are new to felting and short of money, this is the ONE book I recommend you buy.