Felt making

I told you this was a busy few days didn't I? I've had a really lovely day today and it's cheered me up no end. A friend of mine invited me along to a felt making day which had been arranged locally. The tutor was Jane Marrows who is based in Sneinton Nottingham and is a member of Sneinton Artists .
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The workshop was held at the Scout Hall in Bottesford village and we had a leisurely start with a cuppa. Jane then took us through a short demonstration of how to make a fairly soft felt. I had been worried that the procedure might involve hours of rolling and pummelling but far from it.
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We laid out 3 layers of our base wool (white to begin with), each layer at right angles to the previous one and the fibres overlapping each other by roughly a third so that there are no gaps.

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The fibres were then covered with a layer of net (nylon fabric), wet with hot soapy water and rubbed over with the back of the hand (in my case). It didn't take very long at all for the fibres to start felting and after about 10 minutes of rubbing and manipulating we were able to rinse the felt and set it on a windowsill to dry.

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As you can see we set up the base layers and then made a bit of a design with coloured wools and other fibres including angelina.

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For my second piece I layered coloured wool fibres and then used snippets of silk, yarn, angelina and silk mawatta cap.

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This piece felted up even quicker than the first piece! You can manipulate it further to firm the felt up but I quite like this soft finish.

Felting 2

As you can see we had a lovely bright, large hall to work in and there were just enough ladies to make it a friendly sociable morning. I think there were about 16 of us altogether. This was not a club but a group of ladies, friends of friends, who got together to put on their own workshop with an invited tutor.

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My friend, who had invited me, used beautiful Autumnal colours for her piece. It is amazing that this mound of fibres compacted down so far.

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The net was pulled back to check on the progress of the felting.

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After the felt had been rubbed under the net we rolled the felt up and squeezed it and rolled it to encourage the felting to complete.

Felting 3

The workshop lasted for two hours and it was the quickest two hours I have known. At the end of the two hours we cleared up and then enjoyed an excellent lunch provided by the organiser and her friends. Very civilised and a lovely change from rushing off at the end of a session without time to chat!

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As you can see there were some beautiful and colourful pieces of felt produced You should be able to see my friend's lovely Autumnal felt. I love the heart shape too. Jane was an excellent tutor and went round encouraging and advising everyone. She had brought examples of her work with her and a very tempting array of wool fibres, silk fibres, buttons, sequins, inspiration packs and mini felts. Yes, I was tempted. No, I'm not posting my sins this time lol

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Above and below are my pieces, not quite dry and photographed in very bright sunlight this afternoon. I was trying to think of the sea when I laid out the left hand side of the piece above. The right hand side was just a play.

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I will have to photograph the piece above again as it is drying out with the background looking much darker and the red silk showing up more.

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I treated myself to one of Jane's mini-felts as it reminded me of a stone wall, even though the colours are not "wall-like". It's about 4 inches square and I'm sure will inspire me to work some more at this magical felting.