ROC Day Felting Mini Workshop

ROC day 2018 with the Black Sheep Handspinners Guild was a wonderfully fun experience here in Lansing, NY. It had to be put off for a couple of months due to the snowy winter weather, it was shorter than expected, but we managed to cram in loads of stuff! I was responsible for a quick little intro to felting workshop~ we tossed some fun bits of wool and things on a pre-felted surface, sprayed it with soapy water, rolled it up and started the felting process. After I took it home, I went to town and got it all felted together. Here I'm going to share photos of what I did and the results. The finished piece has been entrusted to another spinner who will, hopefully, show it off at the April meeting.

Up to the left is the piece after it was wrapped in a towel around a pool noodle and rolled about 100 times in each direction, top and bottom.

On the right, you can see how the piece has shrunk more on the far end than the closer end. At this point, the far end had been rubbed between my hands a number of times, until I could see and feel the felting happening.

Here are closeups of some of the bits and pieces. You can see that the locks were having a little trouble sticking on and the silk needed a little extra wool tossed over it so it would stay down nicely. A little more rolling and rubbing was done to get these bits to stick down better.

Once that step was completed, I decided to do a bit of cutting and pre-shaping. Slits were cut all along one side, while the other side was pulled into a kind of scalloped edge. The ends were pulled and rubbed between my hands into a rather random shape.

Once it all looked like it was going to stick and I could see a little shrinkage occurring, it was time for fulling to begin. I took it to the sink, ran warm water over it, added a little soap, squeezed it out and then tossed it against my steel sink about 100 times. It was put in a bath of cold water with some vinegar added to neutralize the soap, rung out again, and then thrown another 50 times or so. Now it was really shrinking up~ hooray!

 You can see on the left how the slits expanded into larger openings and the piece of silk took on some bumpy texture as the wool around and over it shrank. Another rinse in really hot water (off the stove), some rubbing and pulling into shape, and then a final rinse in cold water and it was ready to dry out.

It was wrapped in a towel and gently mashed to get some of the water out, then put in the dryer for about 1/2 hour. As it was still a little damp, some last minute shaping was done and then it was hung to finish drying.

On the right is the finished piece with the side we were working on at ROC day up.

To the left is the back side of the piece- see how easy it is to make it reversible?

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Handmade Lampwork Glass Pins! For scarves, shawls & sweaters

The other day, while showing off a couple of felted scarves on facebook, someone showed me a nice pin that she'd made with her own lampwork beads, which got me thinking about the different types of pins I make with my beads and why.

First is the fibula pin, which your leg bone was named after, not the other way around (or so I've been told). Mine are made on 16 gauge brass wire, which is pretty thick~ so that it won't bend out of shape easily when used. Brass is nice because it doesn't patina like copper and it is cost effective. Because these pin wires are so thick, they should really only be used on loosely woven things like shawls or sweaters. Otherwise they might make big old holes in your lovely scarf! Fibula pins are rather time consuming and tetchy, so I've come up with two different options.

Next came the fork, which can also be used to hold hair back (mine works best when put in while my hair is still wet~ I have the thin, slippery kind of hair, so it will slide a bit as the day progresses otherwise). I was happy to find that these had two good uses. They are also quite thick as they are made on 14 gauge brass wire. So, again good for loosely woven items.





Then came the simple bent stick. Really cool because it is so simple and it works quite nicely! This is very similar to the hair stick option, but with just one wire to thread through the shawl. Another 14 gauge choice, so still not great for a scarf.

Once I started making felted scarves, I got serious about stick pins again. The pin part of these is quite slender and, after searching high and low, I found some hat pin blanks in stainless steel that were nice and strong. The bits and pieces to put these together come from about 4 different companies~ yikes! I find it easiest to insert the stick pin in and just leave it there, putting the scarf on and off over my head.

Wet Felted Scarves- Butterfly Style!

The BFL scarf, with a bit of black added

Oh, don't you love it when things converge!? I went to the Black Sheep Handspinners Guild meeting in September with fiber to give away. And the kind person who took it off my hands gave me a bit of BFL (Blue Faced Leicester, for the uninitiated) that was dyed orange, yellow and brown. Now these are colors I just don't work with~ but it was a lovely bit of fiber, so hmmm...  I just happened to have a book out of the library called Patterns in Nature (Publishers Weekly's 'most beautiful book of 2016')~ an excellent book which not only shows amazing patterns, but tells the science behind what makes those patterns occur. For instance the patterns on feathers happen before they split into barbs- who knew?

Three butterfly scarves here!

As I was leafing through the book I came across a closeup photo of a butterfly wing and~ guess what? The colors were the same as the lovely fiber I'd just gotten my greedy hands on. And so an idea was born! The colors, the patterns, the shapes~ it's all good. These days, just about all of my scarves are based on butterfly patterning. There are so many amazing patterns to study and imitate.

Now, of course I am wondering about starting a fish scarf series!

Nuno Felted Scarf mini tutorial

  The nuno (New? No!) journey continues. Scarf used for this project is rayon, which, if loosely woven, seems to work nicely. And, yeah, another thrift store find (hence the 'new? no!' designation). I was kind of afraid to do this one because of the print, but I decided to take the plunge yesterday and just pay no attention to the printed side! Gives me hope for some of the other printed scarves I have been ignoring...
Five photos show the three easy steps and finished product. Did it turn out precisely right? Well, no, but I like it anyway! I will 'splain what I did and why below.

  First, lay out the fiber (not too much!) on the wrong side of the (ironed) scarf on plastic on top of the bed. I do this dry so I can change it later if I don't like it. In this photo, the wool has been sprayed with cool water with just a wee bit of soap in it.

  Next, I wanted to see what would happen if I 'raked' the fibers~ just like a big bead! So I took a chop stick and carefully manipulated the fibers, making three lines. Then I filled in the empty space I made at the top with a little more fiber. Turns out this raking was not severe enough, so the pattern is pretty muted in the finished scarf. Oh- and that maroon? It's actually a lovely dark purple.

 And, because I have it, I added a little bit of 'confetti'. Just take bits of plied yarn apart into its single plies and toss it about.

 Whoops, no pictures, but next step is to roll it around a pool noodle, put a towel around it, tie it up tightly and roll gently. I do this for about 20-25 mins, then take it apart, check for empty areas that might need a bit more fiber, fix those, and put it back together for more rolling around~ while watching a good movie! By the end of the movie, you should have taken it apart 3 or 4 times and readjusted it (roll on noodle the opposite direction, etc.). Don't keep adding fiber, just the first time).

Hopefully, at the end of that movie it will be ready to slam on the counter 30-40 times, rinse in warm water, then water with vinegar, then cool water, wring gently, adjust and hang to dry. Go to bed and Bob's Your Uncle~ a new scarf to wear in the morning!

And here it is in all its glory. The back actually works nicely with the front. And it will be very warm! 

One more shot- you can see that the raking made the lines wobbly and not much else. Better than straight lines, anyway!

Oh, this picture looks wonky because it is. This scarf is not on a flat surface!