More nuno experiments at Morley this week, with blended, carded yarns again but this time on to silk organza. This was much harder work than the nuno on muslin, but interesting textures arose. this piece is about 40 inches by 8 inches.
I’m not sure about the white backing, and I might try silk paints on the white surface to take this back a bit. Or, I might try stitching around the exposed parts and pulling them so they are more textured…..
Nuno felting at Morley last night. This is an astonishing technique, where fibres of wool become trapped in a fabric base layer, causing that layer to pucker and move as the wool shrinks.
We first of all carded our own blends of dyed merino tops which was a strangely hypnotic activity. This produces fine rolls of blended wool, rolags. These are then placed on to the base fabric and felted in. Hard work but great results. We were first asked to make a sample piece, including a colour we don’t normally work with, so I chose a yellow backing.
This started off as about 12 inches by 10 inches, and has felted in to about 7inches by 5 inches. Circles of rolag of graduated, blended blues, on yellow muslin backing.
For the second sample we had to cover the whole surface with rolag and then trap non-felting fibres in the felt. The orange threads are silk cut tops dyed at a workshop with Myfanwy Hart several years ago, and the fine red threads ( barely seen) are silk weft from a scrap left from my wedding dress.
Morley course started again last night, module 2, felting and transfer printing. Although I like felt as a medium with which to sew, I haven’t really felt the urge to make my own felt. That could be about to change with these results form last night. Each of these are about 8 inches in longest length and are surprisingly strong. The colours of the merino tops almost glow. Could need another trip to the Handweaver’s Studio.
Photo from Bugsandfishes.blogspot.com, great blog and wonderful felt.
Finally recovering from the flu, and I had enough energy to put together some quilted / embroidered squares, that I had been working on over Christmas , into my first piece for the BQL challenge 2011. There is a bit of a trapunto effect in this after machine quilting, as the middle panel has two layers of wadding. This is 18 x 12 inches and will go into a swap where participants can review the photos and state which are their favourite 5 to swap with.
As there are currently 100 participants, I think I will be able to avoid any trauma of being the only one not picked for a swap( unlike being picked last for all teams at school PE lessons, but that’s a psychological scar to be explored on a different occasion……..)
As the swap doesn’t take place until the end of Feb, this will brighten my walls for 2 months.
Why is it, when you have lost your voice, everyone else either starts whispering back to you or shouts very loudly as if there is something wrong with your hearing as well? No energy for sewing, so I suppose this must be the flu.
On another health note, it is no wonder that the Scots have one of the world’s highest incidence of cardiovascular disease, when one of the favourite meats is Lorne sausage, which to be tasty, “ must have at least 20% fat”. As one of the Scottish diaspora, thank goodness, this isn’t on sale in our local butcher……………because it is very tasty.
Grilling, not frying in at least an attempt to remove some of the 20% fat.
In the pan, and not in the arteries.
Happy New Year.
