The Purl Bee

The Purl Bee is the blog of a knitting/craft store in New York City. I can't remember how I came across it but I liked it becasue I feel like it does craft in a stylish and creative way, the presentation of the blog is really aesthetically pleasing, the photography used is classy and sophisticated. I found it very inspiring to scroll through the pages of archives on felting and a bunch of other crafts, the way everything was presented was pleasing to look at and steered away from nanna crafts. It was encouraging to see craft been done well and cool, if you get what I mean. It has archives on all sorts of different craft, embroidery, knitting, corchet and the list goes on. Others might be interested in having a look, the web address is: http://www.purlbee.com/.

Solvy and dreadlocks

I had never heard of solvy until the other day, and the discovery really excited me. For those of you who don't know, solvy is water soluable plastic that has an appearance similar to fusing. As I have talked about earlier in my blog, I have made these felted dreadlock in the washing machine with unspun yarn, and I have wanted to use them in some cool way but have not know how until now. So with the solvy I sandwiched my felted dreadlocks between two layers in a planned but random looking pattern. Then using a zig zag stitch I secured all the dreadlocks making sure I caught them all with the machine. Then it was as easy as running my sample under water and away dissolved my solvy, leaving me with crazy lattice pattern. I think that this technique looks very effective, and is a new take on felting which contrasts to the wet felting which I am also pursuing. I would like to take this solvy/felting concept further and incorporate it into my garments, as I think it will compliment the simplicity and softness of the wet felting in my garments. I had been feeling last week that my work was lacking somthing and I was needing another element to build upon my wet felting, I think that this has opened up a whole new area for me.

Washing machine samples

I have been expeimenting with the washing machine a bit. To make these I cut a whole lot of long pieces of all these different types of wool, then tied some in bundles and left some single. I put some with their ends in laundry bags and some just in the washing machine. I put them through a cotton sturdy warm wash, and they felted into these fantastic sea erchin shapes, and bulby yarns. I think these could be great used as a decorative part of gaments, like on the shoulder of a dress or on a waistband or something like that?

Wet Felting

These are the wool batts used for wet felting, they are very fine wool fibers that have not been made into yarn yet. When you lay the wool, you pull very fine tufts away from the wool batts and lay them in a cross hatch pattern before wetting and rubbing. The second image is a bit of welt felting in the process. As you can see there is lots of soap suds, and the piece of felt is wet and being agitated with a scrucnched up plastic shopping bag. I am doing the felt on bubble wrap bith the bumps facing up, as this futher agitates the felt.

FELT BY SHARIT

Born and raised in Africa, she was fascinated by the different shapes of branches of trees. She used this inspiration in her naturally designed clothes of felted wool and silk. There are a number of felting techniques being used in this garment. The flower has been created by it looks like about five layers of fabric. Neutral colour palette at play.

SHIRDAK

When I found this image I was so happy, after hours of research on the interent into felting, my heart was sinking becasue all I was finding was bright orange felted hats and bright pink felted slippers and I was loosing faith! This image came from the Shirdak Silkroad Textiles website, which is a gallery of Central-asian nomad textiles and felt carpets. This felting is just beautiful, the the layering, texture and structure. I like the cross hatch pattern that has been created on the bodice of the dress, it looks like the felting may have been done onto silk to create this effect. I also like the strands of felt that have been taken and tied in a knot on the shoulder. I would like to experiment with felting onto silk and see what effects can be created with this technique!

FELTING

This is a felted honeycomb shawl, the felt has been created with interesting holes in it and crazy irregular shapes. I love the organic and rustic look of this felting. I like the textural appearance of felt, and I am thinking of experimenting with felt and going down this pathway for my overall direction in the craft studio. The colour of this shawl also appeals to me, I am fan of tha natural colour palette and I like felting done in these natural tones. I can't stand the bright colours all felted in together that you see so often a craft markets, I think that felting done in more muted tones is much more refined and yet has a rustic and textural aesthetic. This is something that I want to develop and work on further.