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Friday 15 August 2014

Translucent felt

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been doing almost obscene amounts of dyeing this week, one batch was for my C&G course and was predominantly focussed on dyeing different animal fibres in the same dye vat (bag in my case) so you end up with a harmonious blend of colours in a range of materials. I chose to use each pair of primary colours so had 3 "vats" and the these are the results.



Each vat contained, Corriedale top, some alpaca top, silk hankies, ponge 5 silk, a piece of commercial prefelt, some merino pencil roving and a piece of hand spun White Faced Woodland.

For good measure I threw in some of my scoured Jacobs fleece too...

The colours are so lovely I kept finding myself standing in the bathroom literally watching them all dry :) Needless to say I couldn't wait to use them...

Our brief from the course was to create a piece of textured felt using the design work form previous weeks (in my case I had been working with bone micrographs).

I cut out some silk shapes that resembled the holes you see in bone when under the microscope.

And laid resists over the top that were just slightly smaller than the silk.

Then added 2 layers of the corriedale roving, pulling the tufts was lovely as I had different colours with each pull.

I even spun some of the orange/red pencil roving, my spinning is definitely improving but I'm not about to win any prizes for producing beautifully even yarn.

After felting and cutting out the resists.

I'm really pleased with how this piece turned out but it really comes to life when you hold it up to the light:

The corriedale has produced a beautiful crimp and the silks look like stained glass windows. I think this technique would make a stunning lampshade or even curtains.

Here is a closer look at the curly corriedale, this is fast becoming one of my favourite wools to work with:
Now I just need to figure out a way to hang it so it can be hung in front of a window and the frame / hanger does not cast a shadow that would detract from the design....

I also repeated the dyeing a variety of different fibres exercise. Following advice from Ruth I tried some grey and brown too (thanks Ruth). It's still a bit monochromatic but an improvement on the last version :)

Linking up to nina-marieoff the wall Friday

13 comments:

  1. That is an amazing result from your process. You are so lucky to be in the course. I agree that it looks like stained glass.

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  2. The translucent effect is gorgeous! But what was the layer you firstly placed under the silk pieces? Thanks for sharing…you certainly are a busy bee!

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    1. Thank you Sunny. The white layer was a little bit of merino to encourage the silk windows to pucker.

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  3. The piece held up to the light is lovely! (All fibre enthusiasts will understand why you stood in the bathroom just looking.)

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    1. Thank you Lyn and its a relief to hear I am not the only "loony" who watches her washing dry... ;o)

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  4. You already know how to do most of the surface designs that Fiona teaches, so you will breeze right through the assignments! This one turned out wonderfully!

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    1. Thanks Laura, I am always hopeful of learning a new technique or even just a better way of achieving something I can already do. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun interacting with other fibre enthusiasts too :)

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    2. That's one of the best parts of the class, getting to see what everyone else comes up with. Lots of inspiration and new ideas!

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  5. I love the translucent piece - as I've been working on a lampshade I totally agree that it would be wonderful for that. I have an extra frame you can use ;)

    I am always walking by the bathroom and peeking in when things are drying. I guess we're all a bit loony.

    You're welcome on the use of grey and brown wool. I do think the result is better.

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    1. Thanks Ruth. I will decline your kind offer of a lampshade frame as I really want to see your finished shade (no getting out of assembly the frame that way! ) ;o)

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