I've been so inspired the past few weeks, all thanks to the discovery of felting, and in particular Wet Felting and Nuno Felting. Wet Felting is the process of laying out wool fibers, wetting them with soap and water, and make sure all wool fibers integrate with one another to create a new fabric or finished product (like a scarf, vest, or even 3D products like a vase). Nuno Felting is a variation on Wet Felting where wool and silk are used to felt with each other, the wool fibers have to be carefully merged through the silk so they stick to each other.
I have bought loads of fibers: silks, wool fibers, viscose (a cheaper silk-like fiber), hankies... Gorgeous stuff that yesterday finally was going to become a scarf.
The photographer in me is stressed out because I haven't found a way to create decent process pictures yet, so these off-the-smartphone shots will have to do for now. They are taken while often holding delicate fibers in my hand and while knowing that every movement of air can disrupt (blow away!) my design, so they're terribly imperfect, but for now the felt artist in me wants to shut up the photographer in me and just show off some of the work I've been doing.
Black, white and rusty orange layouts
Basically what you see here is me laying down a handful of different fibers in different colours in shapes and patterns that both make sense (not every fiber can felt with itself/each other) and is visually pleasing (at least to me).
I'm a huge addict of geometric patterns, and although the natural fibers I'm using will never allow themselves to be shaped into something with clean and sharp edges, I'm definitely having fun into merging both the organic and the geometric. My first two scarves didn't really look like I could have made them because they were random designs, but the layout I'm showing in this post really feels like me, and I'm fairly certain people who know me also recognize them as something I could have made.
After this part, basically the design part, the real felting begins, which involves wetting the fibers, and 'irritating' them in such a way that they want to entangle into a new wool/silk fabric.
I'll show some first results tomorrow, right now one of my scarfs is still waiting to dry. In one hour I'll go to bed and tomorrow morning I'll wake up knowing that scarf is dry, which means it will be the first time I see it as a finished product.
More posts on my first steps into learning to Felt:
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Felt experiments: blank canvas
Return from The making of a Nuno-Felted Scarf | Process #1 to Rosanne's Web3 Blog
