Felting Knitted Handspun Wool

I decided that I would never make the 12 balls of handspun (by me, approx 15 or 20 years ago!) into a jumper so instead of getting rid of it I thought I'd invest even more time into it :-) I knitted some up into a bag shape and then felted it. I'm quite pleased with the result. I need to knit/felt a strap as well but I haven't done that yet. This was knitted with one strand of the handspun and the felt is really quite thick. I plan to embroider and/or dry felt onto this to liven it up a bit.

I knitted some more of the handspun up with some really bright pink synthetic yarn (acrylic?) and this is a photo before I felted it. I still have more handspun left so I will knit that up with some other yarn but I'm waiting to see what the result is from this one first. If I don't like the effect with a synthetic (which I think will sort of bobble up) then I'll knit the rest with some other wool to try and create a striped felt. This one may also come out very thick because I knitted with the 2 yarns together. I started it before I felted the first one and didn't realise how much it would thicken up - this pink/brown one might be so thick I won't be able to stitch through it!

Birthday goodies

Russ took the day off work so we had the whole day together. We had lunch out in the hills and visited the Mundaring Art Gallery. In the evening we went to see "The Ugly One" play at the new theatre complex in Perth. A very enjoyable day and relaxing day. My sister sent me vouchers so that I can choose some perfume online and I plan to do that this afternoon. My friend Joan has been slowly decluttering (v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y, s-l-o-w-l-y) and last time I visited I suggested I could help by giving some of her hand dyed wool a new home as I had enjoyed making some arty felt pieces recently. So this is the great bundle I received at the weekend when we visited. Lots of wool with some hand spun yarn, some silk tops, and some commercial embroidery threads. Joan used to keep her own sheep so some of this could have been "home grown". Although I'm looking forward to creating with this little lot I'm going to just look at it all for a while until inspiration hits.

Felting Workshop

These felted pieces were created during a WAFTA 2-day workshop with tutor Lee Anne Davis. We made pre-felts, layered prefelts with various fabrics, and stitched into the result with various yarns. The idea was to experiment with as many fabrics and yarns as we could. Then the whole assembly was fully felted. None of these are finished as the idea was to further embellish the fully felted pieces with more stitching. Most of the class were working with beautifully fine soft Merino fleece - I had coarser hand dyed Corriedale (I think) which had been given to me by my friend Joan years ago when she moved house. It worked just as well for the techniques but wouldn't be quite as nice to wear next to the skin as the Merino. I measured the blue and orange sample prior to felting so I could record the amount of shrinkage. Prior to felting the design measured 5-3/8 inches, after felting it measured 4-7/8 inches. All of my fabrics were synthetic and solid colours - patterned silk chiffon or georgette pieces work brilliantly with this technique and complement the softness of the Merino. Thank you Lee Anne for sharing your knowledge so generously and graciously. It was a wonderful workshop - I had a great time despite the heat. Have a look at the WAFTA website here http://www.wafta.com.au/events.html to see some images of Lee Anne's work.