Feltmaking and carding.

Two posts so close together? Just feeling so excited, just had to share..........

I had loads of fun last night at the Textile Course. The little bowl got completed, it was first soaked to remove the water soluble fabric, then, whilst still wet, soaked in a solution (half water, half stiffening liquid) of Stiffy.

But then Ruth, our Tutor, surprised me with a give-away comment. "Now what about some beads." She was right, it does need something. Ruth, you have started me thinking. Beads......... now which colours............sparkly or plain.......... Its dangerous, thinking............

Now, not only did we finish those little bowls, we got to do some more feltmaking. This time we were introduced to the pleasures of carding. For me this was a first. I wasn't too keen on the carding itself, but loved the mixtures of colours which could be achieved. Magic...........

This was some of the range of wool colours I had started with. We were asked to find a collection of light, middle and darks.

The piece of prefelt (lightly felted wool) below is the result of felting my carded dark colours. The next stage with this is to introduce some handstitching.

I have some homework to do this week - to get my light and middle collections of carded wool to the prefelt stage. This will be great fun to do, however............... its such a messy process that I might have to set up a table out in the garden and get the work done there. The tiled floor of my kitchen is definitely not the safest place to get any felting done. I'm sure its probably me, but I get water splashed everywhere!