Well, here it is. No, I couldn't wait for my new supplies to come. It was calling to me and I had to answer. Actually, it wasn't a trial at all .. it went very smoothly ... only took a couple hours to make and all day to dry. I had already made the strap before as a rope project so that was ready to roll. The only thing I don't care for is the shape of my fringes .. looks like I cut them out of solid felt ... actually, I almost did .. the red solidifies very quickly and I should have teased them apart earlier than cutting them later. All in all, I rather pleased with this. The surface texture is really nice.
I had an email from Louet yesterday too. My order has been shipped but one of the colors is on back order and to follow in another couple of weeks. Hopefully the most of it will be here by next weekend, as well as the Angelina fiber from the states. I'm having my friend Lu out for part of the long weekend and she is interested in seeing how this is done. That gives us something to do, besides our trip to Masstown in search of Dragon's Breath Blue Cheese. We have both declared this to be the absolute bomb of blue cheeses.
So, I'm not sure what my projects will be this weekend. I think I'm going to make another bag. Can't decide on the color or style just yet. That decision is going to take another cup of coffee. Have a great weekend everyone ... the sun just came out here and it was supposed to be raining, so all is great in my world.
Not one to be defeated by my own stupid mistakes, I made three more cellphone cases yesterday. I am pleased with these. The dark brown one I made first. I was quite happy, except I didn't have quite enough white on the outside of the fringe of the flap. That was my error on layout. The grey one came next and even though the grey is a very coarse, long staple wool, it worked better than I expected. I was happier with the fringe.
I attempted the red wool again. As soon as I wet it, it tried to get away from me again. I have no idea what this wool is .. the staple is short and it's very fine and soft. I'd guess merino, but not sure. I was able to control the wool but you can see this one is a bit wider than the others. A tiny bit of the red solidified and didn't stick on the front so I snipped it off. Not sure what happened there either, except I think it might have folded off initially on the bottom side where I couldn't see it, during the beginning stages. I also dared to cut some holes in the flap with pleasing results. I found out these holes can get a lot larger in a big hurry where the wool is very thin. More valuable knowledge for the data base in my brain.
I was really happy with the flame look of the red flap. I don't know what kind of wool the yellow is either. It's a long staple a slightly coarser than the red. I got both at a fabulous price on EBay in large amounts. I imagine it is left overs from the International Day of Felt project quite some time ago as this was themed in red and yellow colors. In any case, it was inexpensive and I have a lot of it.
This is the sketch I have ready for my first handbag. I'm waiting on an order of four colors of dyed Corridale top from Louet in Quebec and a sampler of Angelina fibers from the states. Once those treasures arrive, I think I'm ready to dive into handbag production. The little cases were a great experience, but I just fell in love with the handbag concept and can't wait to try it.
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I hope you have a wonderful day. That goes to my mom too, who I know will be reading this. Love you Mom.
I'm still playing with the wet felting ... holding off on the handbag project because I just am not yet skilled enough and I really want to make it nice. I'm learning quite a bit about the art just from making these bangles. I've already learned that not all wools like each other and have had a couple of disasters. The black and red number shown fell apart on me early in the wetting process, so after fighting with it for a little while, it wouldn't go the way I wanted it to, so I discarded it.
I've learned that the hotter the water is, the better this works. I'm starting to develop a feel for the process, beginning to understand when to add water and when to add soap. I'm completely amazed by the process and how hard and smooth it becomes. I've been flaming the fuzzy hairs off the damp finished bracelets, before beading them because I love the look. The smell of burned wool disappears once they're dry. I can't find any instructions where this step is mentioned .... so it's not likely recommended. Remember, I don't have the luxury of an instructor. I'm trying to learn all this from internet resources. I can't afford to buy the books either. I've also been sharing this with my talented artist cousin, Deb, on the South Shore. She has made some very pretty unbeaded bangles and has also become obsessed with the process.
The ones shown in this pic have just been flamed and I took them outside to brush the burned bits off. Notice how smooth they look. The more I make, the more I realize I need to learn. This is especially true when something doesn't work out and I then have a need to find out why. So many questions ... so much to learn .. but it wouldn't interest me if there was no challenge.
I'm looking for a list or chart or something to tell me which types of wool work best for needle felting vs. wet felting vs. spinning. So far, I have found no such chart, but lots of info. It looks like I will have to make the list myself based on many different resources. Any helpful hints from my readers are gratefully appreciated.
There are volumes of things I want to know. Like all about wet felting with resists, and how to stick on pieces of prefelt and how to attach ropes for bag handles and the like. I now realize a beret with a resist was a silly thing to do for a beginner project and the fact I was able to save it with so little experience was a pure miracle. This is so much fun and at the same time so difficult. The learning curve will surely take years to master. I now understand so much more about the accomplished artists in this field, and have so much more respect for the time they invested to get to where they are.
Yesterday was one of those wet dreary days that I really didn't feel like doing mundane housework or anything remotely related to domestic work. I thought it was time to learn something new. Between the three loads of laundry, I managed to absorb quite a few YouTube videos on wet felting and decided to start with the little blue bracelet shown here. Using a piece of hemp tied to the correct size to fit over my hand, I carefully wrapped layers of wool around it and proceeded to wet felt. The bracelet didn't turn out half bad. Yes, there was a large fold on the inside ... so large in fact,that it looks like I used two cords and fused them together. I used too much wool in the whole piece and I carved some away to show the inside purple color, carving too deep so that my sliced area kind of caved in. Acceptable though and once the beads are added, it will be a truly unique piece. It's a bit chunky but like I said, too much material.
Then I moved on to the rope. This turned out really well and was much easier than needle felting them so I'm fairly pleased. I could have continued felting this for a much thinner and stiffer rope, but at this point I wasn't sure what to use it for, so stopped at a point where it was flexible, strong but still soft. I think should I need a stiffer rope, I could just repeat the process on the same piece. I really like the rope.
By this time I was rather pleased with myself and thought I'd move on to something harder, like a beret. This requires a resist and I had everything set up and ready to roll in no time, with my corrugated cardboard resist, netting, bubble wrap, hot soapy water, etc. Things started to go wrong ... the soap bottle slipped from my hand and broke open on my ceramic kitchen floor, creating a treacherous terrain that had to be cleaned up right away lest I slip and break my neck in the mess. I worked at this piece a long, long time ... and I was really tired when I deemed it completed. However, I could see it was still too big. Why wouldn't the darn thing shrink? I worked at it some more. Until it came time to cut the hole for my head, I still hadn't really decided which side was up but stuck to my plan anyway. Once I cut the hole, I had to work on the edges a lot to keep them from coming apart ... and consequently the bottom of the work got a lot more fulling on it than the top, which was thin. It' could have used more wool to begin with. There were a couple of holes in it!!! I managed to push them together but it is way too thin on the top and seems just right on the bottom. Where I'd folded the overhang wool over to the bottom made all the difference. The thing is way too big ... the hole is the correct size but the beret looks like an extra large pizza on my head so it's now a nice piece of wool for cutting up to become part of another project. I really messed it up but enjoyed the learning experience of it all. I think I can mostly see where and what I did wrong ... but it would have been nice to have an instructor to yell at me at the time I was doing it so the mistakes could have been corrected then. The top of the beret is a lovely weight for a laminated scarf though ... so maybe sometime soon, I'll attempt one of those. Even though it's too thin, I'm surprised by it's strength.
Did I mention I feel like I've been hit by a truck? Wet felting is a great upper body workout and I likely should have paced myself a little better and not tried to do all three projects in one day. I can barely move my arms this morning. I'm disappointed in the beret and it did use quite a bit of wool. I'm rather intrigued by the whole experience and it's neat to watch the fibers do what they do when hot water and soap is added. It's not likely we're ever going to have an artist of the caliber of Andrea Graham here to hold a workshop in this neck of the woods, so I'll have to rely on instructional videos. I want to try making a bag with a resist. I've been checking out some of the ones Andrea Graham teaches and I just love the look of them. I'm a bit scared now that I've mucked up the beret project, but I have learned a lot about the wool, and it seems to me that the only way I can get this skill is by practice, so I'm going to work on some kind of design for a bag very soon. All in all, the learning experience was very well worth the effort, sore muscles and I did get a neat bracelet and rope out of it.
Here I am again .. a couple hours later. I've had another brainstorm and I think it will either work, or be a total disaster with no grey area in between. I'm cutting another resist, just a bit smaller and turning the hat inside out. I'll add more wool and work on that side a lot more and try to ease the material toward the center. I'll have to work on the other side as well, so nothing gets out of center, but not quite so much. Besides, there's only one way to fix sore muscles and that's to work them out. Wish me luck. I haven't given up yet! I need to learn to see with my fingers (which feel like I haven't any fingerprints left) by touch and I will not let a bunch of wool defeat me!
