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I finally had a chance to do something with some of the royal blue wool that I dyed a few weeks ago...you know...the one that made my hands look sort of "smurf like".....  I cut out circles of prefelt using a scrapbook diecut machine that I have from my stamping and scrapbook days-what an awesome time saver-the felt cut like butter, and I have tons of dies in tons of shapes to play with.

They sort of look like eggs after felting...but hey I'm going with it.  I do see that if I use such a dark bottom layer, that my prefelt pieces might need to be a bit thicker..the blue did seem to migrate more than I anticipated.  I now have approx. a 16 x 16 inch square that I can sew into something fun!

Glittery scarf

Another present complete.  Here in Florida we don't get long cold spells.  But when it does get cold, it's nice to have one of these cobweb scarfs handy.  This one is for my mom.  I hope she likes it.....merino, silk caps dyed a peachy orange, and some peach dyed angelina fibers for some extra sparkle.  Outside the sparkle did not show up too well in the sun, but it's there...just very subtle.

Inside out batt

Today is going to be devoted to experimenting with batt making.  I want to make a batt that I can felt into a variety of pouches from the same piece of felt.  The inside of this batt is a sunny yellow.  When you flip it over, you have a variety of greens with a hint of yellow.  Throughout both sides of the batt I included silk that was dyed the same color as the wool.  I will share more later...have a fabulous day!!! :)

Felt covered buttons and typical ramblings....

Today I finished up a birthday present for my sister that I started this weekend.  I started off with my very own self dyed merino.  I carded up a batt that used 4 different colors but I kept same colors together and let them migrate into each other just a tiny bit.  I felted it as a thin panel, and then machine sewed it together.  After I finished that, I did a simple blanket stitch on the outside to give it a little something. And then moved on to finding the perfect button....I could not in all of the 100's of buttons that I have find one that I felt worked well....so.....I covered a button blank with a piece of felt that was a remnant of the pouch and Viola, a matching button.

Now I am sitting here wondering what took me so long to figure out that I could have been making these buttons for my pouches all along!!  Sometimes I'm a little slow I guess....or maybe it's this freezing weather we are having here in Florida- my brain is slushy- I'm not used to wind chills anymore....

So anyway.....here it is...I hope she likes it!

My felted trees...

My inspiration was found here.  I used the same oatmeal color wool that I used for the stockings shown in a previous post.  As an added accent on the top layer, I used a fine merino/silk blend.  I love the effect!

Buttons from Germany...

My best friend went to a fabulous craft fair where she lives in Germany and sent me these buttons!  I love them and cannot wait to figure out what I can make to use them on! 

I am spending the day making wet felted panels to be sewn into pouches.....back to the rolling for me!

gift making....

Another gift finished!  Finally finished sewing the pillow.  My youngest daughter wanted a pillow....she changes the color of her room so often I figured I would make one with many colors....then it will always match! :) 

And the "Barbie Pink" scarf is finished.....it's a bright one..lol

My Peace Felt projects

I was assigned a Peace Felt partner and have been busy deciding what to share with her.  Last week I felted a light blue bag.  I ended up using that as well as two other pieces I made.  I hope she likes what I have made. Since she is a needle felter, I included a small bag of the wool, silk, and angelina fibers I used to make her gifts.  Hopefully she will like that also.

My wonderful vacation is over.....

Back to school for me today.  I am excited as always to get back and plan for my new students, but I am going to miss the lazy no schedule days of summer.....

Earlier in the Summer I dyed a bunch of wool, silk and angelina fibers.  Yesterday I made a new pencil case with some of it.  This time I think I was able to finally perfect adding the silk and angelina within the wool just enough to keep it in place, but not so much that I lose the sparkly quality of the fibers. 

My results...

Hopefully when I come back from vacation, I will be able to work on the projects I have planned for all of this fiber!!!  I purposefully left it with a tie dye look.  I cannot wait to see how the silk hankies and caps work with my ideas-the colors are really soft and I was happy with how well the dye set when I was rinsing...the water was almost completely clear.

Shibori felting..

I have been wanting to try various wet felting techniques.  After some reading, I tried my hand at what I have read is called shibori felting.  I had a stash of wool that I was not too crazy about, so I figured if I messed it up, I would not be too heart broken ( strange I know to be heart broken about wool, but I seem to fall in deep like with some of my purchases..lol)  So here is my attempt. Interesting result....a mutated butterfly maybe. I have some new ideas floating around in my head now that I see how easy it was to manipulate the wool.  Off to play some more....

My results so far..

Okay so I switched the dye source.  I was going to do koolaide but was not happy with the color choices.  So I did some more research and found information on using Wilton icing dyes. 

Soaked  wool in cool water and vinegar before dyeing

Water and Dye (use a tablespoon of dye)

Wrap in plastic wrap and nuke for 2 minutes

Drying

Now off to dye the silk...... :)

Update:  The silk took the dye and left me with rich deep colors!  It does have a tie dyed effect in some areas, but I really, really like the outcome.

Merino Wool

I just received my first order of Merino wool. It is soooo soft! I cannot wait to try making something from it. I love the colors too! I purchased it from Sheepish Creations at Etsy.

I finally finished felting this knitted bowl. The wool on this one took much longer to felt by hand. I like how the top is rolled over and thicker.