Nuno Felted Textiles

Get Crafty for Summer!  New Course starting in May - click for details of new course

Some examples of nuno felted textiles:

flowers leaves and bugs on muslin

silk fabric scraps with hand blended fibres

silk fabric scraps with coloured merino fibres

silk fabric scraps with brown Blue Face Leicester fibres

silk scraps and handblended fibres

silk scraps with moorit shetland fibres

memory cloth - silk, cotton, linen with wool

chiffon with wool and silk fibres

muslin with coloured merino fibres

New Felt Making Course!

new felt-making courses and workshops go here

Here is deepest darkest Devon we are having a most incredible summer with glorious sun-shine.  The light is changing towards the end of the day - sort of good for taking pictures, but they need a fair bit of doctoring to remove the shadows of me taking the picture!

In the new course for September we will be focussing on the more tricky aspects of felt-making - those ones that demand a bit more patience.  I used to be very impatient before finding the craft of making felt.

So we will look in depth at Nuno felting, that is felting onto cloth.  

Here is the Memory Cloth, a heavy nuno felted cloth which has become a cape, constructed of scraps of old cloths (wedding veil, napkins, silk shirts, wedding dresses - all old and way past mending) so preserving them for the next generation.  Made from three panels then felted together (my work table is too small).

Memory Cloth

Here is a nuno felt scrappy hat - so the scraps of fabrics were felted onto moorit (ginger brown) shetland wool, then stitched into shape.  This hat is good for windy weather because of the stretchiness of nuno felt fabric.  I love the crinkly textures that nuno felt creates, and that you can use lots of colours.    Quite impressed by the picture - managed to take it myself - should see the out-takes!

nuno felt scrappy hat

 Ahh beautiful!  Yes I'm totally biased.   Modelling the pinky silky nuno felt wrap, daughter must be laughing at one of my corny jokes...  Here the silky chiffons are felted with white 'blue face  leicester' wool, so it's very floaty.  Doctored this picture alot to splurge the background.  The fabrics were from the off-cuts basket at 'Stone Fabrics' - the best fabric shop in Britain!

pinky silky nuno wrap

We will also be looking at dry needle felting techniques for creating detailed pictures, and 3d pieces.  

The course is split into two parts - the first part will be for learning new techniques, while the second part will be for you to explore what you want to make, with lots of friendly guidance from me.

Details about the course are on the Courses page above.  Contact me by email if you need more information about course content - there's a contact form at the top of the blog.  For information about booking please contact MyDevon 0845 155 1014 or pop into the Mansion in Totnes.

summer felts

more pics of the nuno felt panels that been working on with school children.  The ladybugs panels are being made by the youngest in the school - they wound short lengths of wool around their fingers before carefully placing the spots onto their ladybug.  The best bit was adding water and soap to make lots of bubbles.

The idea of the project is to create a lasting piece of artwork with a special teacher who is retiring this year.  She is getting to help each class to create a felt panel.  The felt panels will ultimately be hung in the woodland den at school.

ladybugs

The leaves panels have been made by the 8 year olds.  Each child made a leaf.  They decided altogether the leaves look like a stormy day in the woods, or that you could imagine walking through the woods with leaves on the ground.

leaves

 A little boy wanted to make a rowan leaf as his middle name is Rowan.

rowan leaf

Next week we will be making a panel of snails, and a bluebell wood...

summer's here

in deepest darkest Devon summer has arrived.  It is hot.  Glorious.  The roses and honeysuckle blooming, and scenting the air - divine.  All the windows are open.  The rambling roses up the wall are abuzz with the business of bees.

Here is a picture of a nuno felt panel that I have been helping the children at my local school to make.  There will be 10 panels altogether.  This one is of bees!

bees

Exactly a year ago our river was flooding - roads ripped up, emergency phone calls in the middle of the night.  A picture from the little old bridge - the water had reached the top of the arch.

7 July 2012 Flood

Extraordinary - the forecasters say we'll have a week of sun... I'd like to play hookey - take the children camping, live outside, return to the wilds - make the most of it - swimming in wild places, lying under trees looking at the canopy, waking at dawn with the birds in the cool of the day.

Good for solar dyeing too - must get those bundles bundled!

memory cloth panel one

Snatched moments on the memory cloth partly in a response to Jude Hill's What If Diaries, and partly in response to the need to record memories held in cloth and to pass on.  Partly to record a feeling of life running through me like a river

Detail of Alice Gertrude's dress 

Detail of river flowing

the river flowing

first panel is felted fragments on silk chiffon with blue face leicester wool

have just finished felting the third panel, and waiting for it to dry.  Then will be the bringing together of three panels into a 'protector' cloth, or comforter or  perhaps a witche's cloak that can magic you away to another world.

Getting Ready For 'Bovey'

Getting ready for 'Bovey' aka the Contemporary Craft Fair where I'm running two workshops on Friday.  And its going to be HOT - take lots of water - maybe a thermos of ice...

So this is pre-felt merino all cut into squares ready to be packed into goody bags.  Felted quilt weaving workshop on FRiday afternoon uses this to make a 'mug rug'.

a tower of pre-felt

On the Friday morning will be running a nuno felt-making workshop - here is my sample..

nuno silk scarf sample

Nearly a disaster as used some of the white pre-felt for the circles and feeling impatient plus the silk voil is quite tightly woven so making the felting a bit more tricky - only one felted!  Like the combination of the 'bumble bee' blend (from World of Wool) on white.  Always good to try out ideas before the workshop...

Looking forward to the preview as students from two of my classes have work in the 'Art of Learning'  exhibition.

Remembering

sample silk nuno

the idea has been fizzing around on and off for a number of years, and with the focus of an exhibition coming in September, it's sample making time...

Another prompt was this -

mouse nest of wool and silk

The mouse invasion meant I needed to completely clean and sort a stash of cloths crossing generations from Great Great Grandmothers to babies - a collective female history (herstory perhaps)

cleaned and dried awaiting repurposing, remembering

This is Great Great Grandmother Alice Gertrude's wedding dress, thick silk satin, see how rotten it is -

Alice married in 1891

Would this fragile cloth felt in or completely disintergrate?  The woman died of pleurisy when only 37 years old, leaving two children.  The age before antibiotics ... the only remedy was to use a mustard compress to draw off the liquid. 

invisible baste on Alice's silk

stitching right side

To secure the scraps I used a variation of Jude's invisible baste to hold them long enough for the wool to do its magic in the felting.

Freda's wedding veil

another treasure is Great Granny's wedding veil, married in 1932.  Also to be included would be some of the velvet from the sleeves - she had a winter wedding and then removed the top to make a velvet skirt died black during the war.

unfelted

and then this became this ...

felted

and this

closeup of Alice's silk

This ...

woven scraps

became this ...

felted woven nuno sample

I've been using fleece from local sheep - teased cleaned and carded so blending dark chocolate brown with creamy white.  So soft.  A little book would be good to make too to record these folk - to accompany the mantle that emerges.

River nuno felted samples

Neck Warmer or Cowl

Definitely not snoods, these neck warmers are handmade of felt by me!  They can be felt and viewed at Artworks, a wonderful community art shop and gallery in Devon.

This nuno felt neck warmer is handmade from a special type of wool - blue face leicester, which is one of the softer lustrous sheeps' fleece.  I have laid this out onto a silk sashing made up of old silk fabrics from my stash (ancient silk scarves once worn by my grandmother, or pieces horded from charity shop finds, or perhaps an old sarong well travelled).  The whole piece is carefully felted to ensure the bond between fabric and fiber.  This is known as 'nuno felt' which someone once told me meant fabric in Japanese.

The upturned plantpot models the neck warmer beautifully don't you think?

NunoFelt Neck Warmer with felt brooch

A bright cheery neck warmer of coloured merino fleece with silk fibres.  Again modelled by a terracota plantpot.  The fleece is laid out very fine to ensure the final felt is lightweight.

Here hand blended fleeces of white Blue Face Leicester with chocolate Shetland are laid onto a silk sashing of pieces from the stash.  The tassles are of felt too.  It is very soft.

Nuno Felt Scarf with tassles

I love making nuno felt - find more examples here and here.

To Wet Your Appetite

Here are some more pictures of felt samples - to wet your appetite, and inspire you, of textures to be created...

felt pen beads enmeshed in hairy felt

bailer twine felted in

the laces part of a felt corset

felt sandwich, stitched, cut and stitched some more

nuno felt

New Felt Making Course

Sample showing fabrics and soft felt cirlces

 Felt Making Course

I am so excited to announce a new course starting on Thursday evenings at The Mansion in Totnes, for 8 evenings.

To book visit www.devon.gov.uk/adultlearning or phone MyDevon on 0845 155 1014 or you could pop into The Mansion in Fore Street in Totnes.

The vital information is Course Code: TT1004FS

Start Date  Thursday 27 September 6.30 - 9 pm


The fun bit!

You will find out how to source resources and process if necessary - for example you may have some lovely sheep with gorgeous soft fleece but not have a clue how to make this ready for felting.  You will need to find out how to do this safely.

Using the wet felting method, you will make samples finding out how to add in other fibres - silk, camel, soya, bamboo or yarns and threads or fabrics such as gauze or chiffon.

Carding and blending fleece to create colours and textures.

Knowing how to design with felt so that your hat fits!

You will record your work in a sketchbook.

Fabric in Felt Sandwich Cut and Stiched

Hand Stiched Felt Sample

'Nuno' Felt Sample

 Hope to see you there!