Monday, January 01, 2007

Nuno Felting Fun


Getting ready to nuno felt onto pieces of dyed cheese cloth. I'll also over-felt the pre-nuno'd long piece across top of photo. Cheesecloth pieces are laid out on pool-supply bubble wrap with tufts of combed wool, mohair and silk rovings arranged however you want. I have to remember to lay bits of wool on top of each piece of yarn, silk or mohair embellishment to felt it down to the base.
I've got a pitcher of warm ivory soaped water and use a plastic baggy glove to drip and rub with water. Then I roll them up rather tightly in the bubble wrap a few hundred times. Drop the wet bundle 10 times opening it up so I don't felt the edges together. Then, I chunk them down hard on the table about 10000 times for an hour until they shrink about 1/3 of the original size. ** Update - my arms are sore! Nuno-felting should be the new arm workout trend! (Click on the photo to see a close up.)

A couple of wet pieces after I've rolled and chunked them a few thousand times. They've started to shrink and the wool is coming through the wholes in back of the cheesecloth. It's finished when it's shrunk to about 1/3 of the size I started with

A few finished and dried Nuno pelts. (Click on Picture)

They remind me of fabric animal hides but without the killin and skinnin.

So far, I've only made doll clothes from nuno felt but I'm thinking of a small wall quilt or whatever else comes up. A few close ups:





eeew! I bought a bunch more felt, silk roving and a few yards of silk gauze from Wild Turkey Feltmakers and Polly Stirling. Polly is a magnificent fiber artist who developed the whole nuno felting process in Australia!

5 comments:

Faith said...

Hi there

thanks so much for calling at my blog, I really love what you do too and you are right art and stitching combined too is great therapy, its like a drug, once you start you cannot stop. I ve saved your blog home page so that I can look regular each time you write.

Robin said...

Gorgeous! I loves me some felt. This looks like a lot of fun, going to add to my long long list of things to try. Thanks for taking nice big pictures to enjoy, and thanks for stopping by my blog!

Anonymous said...

I like the chocolate baby on Flicker! No pics of hubby tho :-(
Why do they call it nuno felting anyway?

SeamRippstress said...

Well "Ladybird" uh I mean JIM, my husband, "Nuno" means "fabric" in Japanese. As for pics of "Ladybird" you're right, I need to add your smiling mug to the lot. I'll get right on it after you clean the garage, deal?

Micki said...

Thanks for stopping by my blog and for your nice comments.

Your felt pieces are fabulous. You look like you've been doing this forever.