Wet Felting

Happy Mother's Day!  But more importantly, Happy Birthday to my Momma!  Now that she's opened her gift, I want to share it here.

I am a felter, and normally I do needle felting.  I wanted to try some wet felting on a larger scale than just wet felting soaps and beads and things, so I set out to make a gift for my Mom.

I started out by laying down a towel and then a layer of bubble wrap, and then a layer of prefelt.  Prefelt is a slightly felted fabric and it's great for the base of felted objects like this. You can also needle felt with it. I started layering whisps of wool on top of the prefelt.

I layered it in one direction first, then in the opposite direction.  Once I had a pretty good layer covering the prefelt, I started in with the colors of the scene I wanted. I made a sky and a field of flowers.

This was fun....putting the colors together to create a "painting".

Then I started adding in dyed locks of wool.  These locks are in natural form, and haven't been carded or combed like the roving.  They're a lot of fun to use!

Once I finished with the sky and the greenery, I was ready to add in the flowers!  I wanted to make hollyhocks, so I added circles of roving to mimic hollyhocks.

Once I was happy with the layout, it was time to wet felt. This was the nerve-wracking part! I was nervous something would get messed up, or the flowers would smoosh together or something.  I used a piece of sheer fabric (this just so happened to be scraps from bridesmaid dresses from our wedding).

The wool was still light and poofy at this point, but then I poured hot soapy water over it.

You can see above how the wool flattens out once wet. I would push it down gently to make sure the wool was saturated, but not sopping.  Then, I wet my hands and put dish soap in my hands, so I could smooth my hands over the fabric to gently start the felting process.  I rubbed my hands in circles and back and forth over the picture for several minutes until I could tell the wool was starting to felt.

Once I peeked at the wool below and could see it felting, I was ready to move on to the more aggressive felting.  The wool and bubble wrap get rolled around a pool noodle, then rolled back and forth to vigorously felt it.

It gets rolled 100 times, then it gets unwrapped and rolled up from a new direction and worked again 100 times. I did this 4 times, rolling up the felt from each direction for rolling.  After 400 rolls, it looked like this.

I was thrilled with how it turned out!  I wanted to add some detail though, so after it dried, I got out my beads and felting needles.

I added some beads to the flowers, and needle felted borders to give it more of a 3D effect.

I needle felted centers to the flowers.

And then I added a hummingbird.

And the finished product:

I was so happy with the finished product! I was so happy to send it to my Mom, because she is a quilter (doing some really amazing art quilts) and I knew she would appreciate it!

Wet felting is pretty addicting, and I'm already planning my next piece!

Wash and Dye Workshop

I'm lucky enough to live relatively close (about an hour) from Sarafina Fiber Art, a great source for felting and fiber art supplies.  Sara, the owner, has also posted numerous tutorials for different felting projects online.  Sarafina offers workshops for things like wet felting, needle felting, dyeing, and painting.  I took one of those workshops last weekend.

The Wash & Dye Fiber Processing workshop was a blast.  We learned how to dye different fibers and we all went home with our own fiber art bundle.  Each person picked through several different types of fibers to find a blend of things we wanted in our bundle.  There were a lot of choices.

We made cards with the name and a sample of each fiber.  Then we picked an inspiration photo and made a plan for the dye pot.

Sara had quite a few options of dyes available.

We also washed part of a Cormo fleece, to practice working with raw fleece.

Then we prepped our fibers for the dye pot.  The fibers went into a soaking bath with citric acid.

Then the fibers went into the pot (with more citric acid), and the different dyes were poured in quadrants.

Then the fibers were put in a rinse bath with vinegar.

Then we spun the fiber dry in this nifty laundry spinner!

The fiber art bundles were set in the sun to finish drying.

This is mine, below.  I have a project in mind for it, and hopefully I'll get to work on it soon.

While I was there, I drooled a bit over all the wool in their warehouse!  This picture below was only one small part of the fiber stash!

It was a fun afternoon, and I've been bitten by the dye bug. I can't wait to do more of this!

Felted Soap

I've been felting soaps lately, and I forgot how much fun it is coming up with colors and designs. I hope to have some soaps in the shop very soon!

The Starry Night

My latest needle felted work...The Starry Night, by Van Gogh.  I've always wanted to try felting it, and finally did!  It's already sold, and I'll be mailing it out tomorrow. I am a little sad to part with it, but just making it was pretty satisfying.

To Da Beach!

In just a few short weeks, I'll be heading down to the Outer Banks to attend my first ever knitting retreat!  I'm very excited. Not only will I have a fun filled, knitting weekend, but I'm also going to be spending time with my sister AND my Aunt Linda AND Debbie (from our MLK weekends).

Oh yeah, and I'm going to be teaching a class and a demo!!  I'm going to be teaching a needle felting class, where we'll all create a beautiful felted scene, and then I'm going to be teaching a demo on how to create a felted bar of soap. That's where you wet felt wool around a bar of soap...it's like a wash cloth and soap all in one!

I'll be vending Purl & June soaps, lip balms, and lotion bars there as well.  My aunt had the great idea to create a custom soap for the retreat.  She suggested something beachy, since we're going to be on the beach.  I thought that was a fabulous idea, so I started doing some planning.

I came up with something really special, and I cannot wait to bring it down there to show everyone!

I did some experimenting with colors and tried to create a beach sunset scene! I think it came out pretty well, especially for my first try!  It's a Beach scent, which smells like warm sand, surf, and a hit of sunscreen. It really makes me want sunny days!

And today, since I was home (snow day, yay!) I spent some time making up needle felting kits for the class.  I'll also have some for sale in the Etsy shop fairly soon.

I color coded the different needle sizes, since you can't tell just by looking at the needle which size it is.

Now the kits are just about finished. 

Oh, and I recently did another needle felted scene.  I was inspired by a picture someone posted on a fiber arts forum on Facebook.  She dyed some yarn, using the picture for inspiration.  Here's the picture she used:

And here is my needle felted version:

I guess I've been in beach mode since thinking about this retreat!  

New Holiday Items in the Shop!

I just added several new holiday items to the Purl & June Etsy shop, so check them out!  There are limited quantities of the holiday soaps, so if you want them order now!  

Here's the new Hot Cocoa soap! This soap smells so good you'll want to eat it!

  

And my personal favorite, the Fresh Cut Fir.

Cranberry...

And Gingerbread

And I also have soap gift sets available too.  Each one comes with a hand knit, organic cotton washcloth, a wood soap tray, and a bar of Cranberry, Fresh Cut Fir, and Gingerbread soaps.  If you want different scents, I can do custom sets as well.  These would make great gifts for teachers, babysitters, aunts, cousins, sisters, moms, you name it.

And last but not least, I just listed a new needle felted wool scene. 

Remember to shop hand made this holiday season!