Effect of Gotland on Merino

A recent discussion on the Felting and Fiber Forum reminded me of a technique I haven't used for a while, it relies the quality of some coarser wools to migrate through (engulf) finer wools, Gotland is a good example of this.

For this cat cave I laid out 3 layers of Gotland, some thin plastic resist in a scroll pattern and 2 layers of teal merino.

Here you can see the Gotland already starting to invade the merino after just 100 rolls:

The pattern on the finished cave before shaving, the Gotland has engulfed the merino except where the plastic resist was placed (even there it has tried to migrate over the merino (it really is the Japanese Bind Weed of the wool world):

And after shaving:

This is the resist and the finished cave, it shrank just a little during the fulling!

The finished cave is about 60 cm across.

Productive Weekend

It's not quite finished but now the sleeves are attached the hooded jacket looks a lot closer to finished.

Front

Side

Back

It just needs a button and some top stitching down the front and it is finished

Yesterday I made another cat-eating fish, cat cave from some hand-dyed Corriedale.

Feeling inspired by this pine cone:

I made a bowl:

And I finally finished these 2 scarves, originially I put a rolled hem on these but did not like the finish so removed the hems, reshaped the scarves and felted the edges to stop them from fraying.

The silk is still very shiny, the photos really don't do it justice at all.

What have you been up to?

A Good Day

Today has been lovely, one of those warm, still, sunny days that promises the beginning of a warm summer to come but tomorrow, rain is forecast. So I made the most of it and worked outside, this is a little bit limiting because you can't really lay-out wool fibres outside; the first puff of wind and all your hard work gets blown all over the garden. But this was just the push I needed to finish a few pieces in my UFO box....

The first was a cat cave inspired by Galina's many and varied fish, if you haven't seen them, do take a look, they are beautiful and lots of fun. They appeal to my sense of humour and that got me thinking about how funny it would be to have a fish swallowing a cat rather than the other way round... silly I know but it amuses me :)

I started this cat cave several months ago, but it wasn't thick / well fulled enough to support its own weight, so today I fulled it to within an inch of its life, it has shrunk quite noticeably, but now it is holding its shape (even while still damp). The only downside to fulling it so firmly is that the patterned green silk running the length of the fish has all but disappeared into the wool. Here it is drying in the sunshine.

The Oak Tree Hat is nearly finished too, here it is a couple of weeks ago where I was just starting to add the leaves:

Before shaping the leaves and final fulling:

Getting ready to shape and position the leaves ready for drying, I'm waiting to see if it needs starch to hold the leaves in position but I am feeling optimistic that they will hold their positions naturally (ideally I would like the leaves to "rustle" in the breeze as the wearer moves). Sorry, this isn't the best background for photographing this hat, my photo-box isn't big enough to accommodate it...

I've also finished the "brain" hat, it's busy drying on a hat block - I'll post some photos of that next time along with the jacket I made in Tatiana Shervada's class at the end of April.... in case you can't wait there is a little taster on Terriea Kwong's blog along with some amazingly creative garments created by the other students.