Fibre Swop

In a fibre swop with Teri of Teriberrycreations I received some Polwarth fibre along with lots of other goodies. This was the fibre that Teri found was the best fibre for making three dimensional sculptures. Polwarth sheep were bred in Australia in the late19th century and are a merino Lincoln cross.
First a made a small test piece to add to my test sample collection. Look how the collection has grown.

Then I decided I would make a test 3 dimensional piece with this special fibre.

Here is my resist Its going to make a kind of 6 winged hollow form.

Part way through felting with the resist still inside.

Final piece basking in the sun. Well I was pleased with this , the shape was exactly as I had planned. So I thought let's dye it , let's shibori dye it. I wanted the inside to be dyed and the outer edges of each wing.

Tied up and dyed ready for steaming.
This worked and didn't work. You could see the shibori effect , but the middle pipe was hardly dyed and the shibori edges although shibori , were rather even .n

I think some kind of dye resist was needed on the outer edges and maybe a little less string so some dye could penetrate into the middle , or maybe a syringe of dye into the middle.
Overall I enjoyed by Polwarth / shibori experiment and my piece has a beautiful texture. many thanks Teri. More news about my tests with the other goodies I received from Teri , in later blogs. .

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this and that....

I have been flitting from one idea to another this week , trying this and that.

I have an assignment on shibori dying felt . This has been fun. It was a bit irritating when the elastic bands I had used , perished totally during the dyeing process. Perhaps that's what you get from using cheap loom band elastic bands ! This altered the finalized result but overall I am pleased with my pieces.

I have made a bracelet, using beads that my daughter made and some kap merino fibre . I have been wearing this to see what it feels like , light and comfortable and I like the look too.

A few weeks ago a took a online class with Carol Ann Waugh on Craftsy called stitch and slash. This is technique aimed at quilters but I though I'd give a tried in felting. So I laminated 4 fabrics ontop of a piece of prefelt , a scrim , a lace and two different colored synthetic chiffons. Prior to laminating I stitched a couple of random shapes into the piece and stitched around the edge as well. After felting it was only totally laminated in parts , which was just what I wanted.

 

I love the wave effect the synthetic chiffon gives.

I then slashed it , right back to the felt in a couple of places , and through different layers on the rest. Leaving some of the slashed fabric in place. I then oversewed and edged it and added a few beads.

A promising outcome I think for a first attempt.

 

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Stitching and beading

Experiment it said in my course instructions. Take a piece of dyed fabric , add threads and stitching and anything else you like ! So I experimented with a piece of shibori dyed pongee and a piece of orange organza (well I think it's organza).

First I beaded

Then I scrunched the pongee and added threads and fibres in orange , browns and greens.

I felted with a fine grey followed by fine orange layer of merino fibres.

I stitched by hand and added a few more beads.

I went crazy stitching on my beautiful new sewing machine. I still have a lot learn about its capabilities but I am very happy with it so far.

And finally I decided to stop.

I am not sure what it is but in my mind it is a very good experiment.

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Pleats

I have been experimenting with laminating a pleated piece of silk.

I got the idea on how to make the pleats by reading how quilters make random pleats. So I took a piece of my shibori dyed silk and having sprayed it with water randomly pleated it , you could say scrumpled it , then ironed it flat and let it dry.

I then placed it on top of another piece of silk that had three strands of a merino silk fibre mix laid on it. I captured both pieces together at the edges by using some thin prefelt that was spiky and that I had cut into holes. Here's the piece part way through felting while still wet.

Finished

I love this effect. The silks are caught together just in places and the texture is really varied. The grey and orange also work really well together.

Close up you can see the texture from the felting and the texture from the captured pleats.

This is only a small piece . I think I will make a scarf using this technique.

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