Nuno Felted Textiles

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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

Many Hands Make Light Work

It is so true.  Many hands do make light work.  In just 4 days the children designed, laid out the wool, and completely felted 10 felt panels - each panel measured at least a metre square.  All through the proces they chatted, told stories, sang songs, and were generally just amazing to be with.

hands

The idea for this panel was to capture the colours and shapes of a walk through the woods at springtime.

Spring

leaves and primroses

bluebells

This piece is an idea of lots of snails - a repeating pattern of snails perhaps?  quite impressionistic.  The shiny fiber is bamboo.

snails

Will be a while before the felt panels are hung as school's out for summer!  

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!

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.

projects

here are pictures of some of the final projects from the lovely class just finished at the Mansion in Totnes.  I really enjoyed working with these felty enthusiasts.  Great projects!  Happy felting, xx

Judy's purse of Jacob's lined with merino fleece

Sheila's purse of blue face leicester lined with merino, and a lovely button

Close up of Moira's picture 'Hide and Seek'

Hide and Seek