A little time for felting

Today I am looking forward to having a little time to do some felting….well in the not-too-distant future. Today is the last day of the regular farmers’ market. There will be a bit of a break before we need to bake for the Christmas markets. I will need to make more meat pies and stock up the freezer with uncooked but ready-to-bake items but that is not as much of a rush.

 

One thing I want to do is make a big pullover/sweater/coat sort of thing. See the bad sketch below. I would like to be able to pull it on over my head but may have to opt for a zipper up the middle. all the squiggles in the second picture are scrunched-up silk…maybe.

 

Hopefully reversible. I think I want pockets. I am wondering if I should try side pockets like you get in a skirt seam or patch pockets inside and out.

 

 

I know I won’t get it done anytime soon, but I would like to do some sampling, and try out some different fabrics for backing and embellishment. I also want to try a sandwich of cotton/wool/silk, silk/wool/silk and cotton/wool/cotton along with the traditional wool on one side and fabric on the other.  I need to try some different wools too. I know merino is likely to pill a lot if not covered in something and I have Corriedale and some BFL that I should try.

Colour is another variable of course. My fallback would be grey with accent colours (I really like grey and red together) or purple, I don’t know.

Ruffled Neck Scarf Workshop

Last week I taught a Ruffle Neck Scarf workshop. This was the first time teaching it and it went very well. I was worried about the timing but it all worked out. I thought the class at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum. They have a nice big classroom with lots of light. and water.

As usual, I forgot to take pictures early but here are two of them being laid out

You can see the template they used to get the layout right and keep it even from one end to the other. I drew it with the outline to follow and a line on them to let them know when they had shrunk enough.

Here they are using the plastic under their scarves to make nice edges.

And a shot of the class working.

Here are the results. I really like the ones where you can see the wool that migrated through the silk.

The Class was a lot of fun. I made the written instructions more detailed than normal because I want to make it a kit. If I ever figure out video iI would like to make an online workshop.  If you were to buy a kit for a ruffled scarf would you want it to be a short neck scarf or a long scarf? the only difference really would be the amount of wool included and the length of silk. I was thinking a short scarf but include the sizing to make a longer template too. I am wondering about the template I usually use thick plastic to draw it on. but it is too bulky to fold flat and too big to ship cheaply rolled up. Should I include a template on thinner plastic or just the instructions on how to draw it up on whatever you want to use?

%d bloggers like this: