A Chooks Tail or How to make felt

It occurred to me that you may not know what handmade felt is all about. This is not meant to be a tutorial on how to make felt… just a brief description for you. There are many different ways to make it but this was the first technique I learnt. My felt begins with unspun sheep wool. This is just a small part of my stash. I have wool straight from the sheeps back, as well as wool that has been washed and combed. Some is commercially dyed, some I dye myself. Generally, I use merino. It is soft and easy to work with. Occasionally, for special projects, I use a courser type, like corriedale. It is much more difficult to felt but is harder wearing and hold its shape well. Felt created using a wet technique begins with pulling out tufts of wool and laying them down in the same direction. The next layer goes down across the first. And so on, until you have a thick, soft batt. To make the wool really interesting you can vary the colours. In this way the finished fabric has wonderful changes and blends that commercial felt rarely has. This is where the work starts. The wool batt is sprinkled with soapy water. A layer of gauze is placed over this and the water is gently worked into it. Working it further with small circular hand rubs starts to intertwine and tangle the fibres. This is the beginning of the felting process. If the wool doesn’t pull apart when it is pinched and gently tugged, we are ready for the next step. The batt is rolled up in bubble wrap and rolled back and forth for 50 – 100 rolls. Unwrap it, turn it, roll, repeat. This goes on for a while. Definitely a good way to give your upper body a workout. Occasionally the piece can be thrown onto the table; it can squished in your hands; and rolled a bit more. It can take a fair amount of time and effort to work the wool.

Eventually the surface texture of the piece changes. The sheet of fabric, which had become very thin when wetted down, has thickened a bit and shrunk markedly. Voila! It is done and ready to use in whatever way you like. Maybe a tail?

A Happy Chook!

I have an old teapot. It was hand-painted, some years ago, and looks a bit dated. But, it’s still a good teapot, soooo… what to do?



Make a tea cosy!



Well, I sat at my worktable, with all the sounds from outside filtering in. And I must have heard the happy clucking of the neighbours’ chickens, because this is what I came up with.

After a bit of discussion with friends, it has been decided that it is a he. And his name is, ahhh, this is where we get into a bit of bother. The naming camp is divided. Half of us want to call him Frank and the other half can’t go past Cecil.

Anyway, now I’m focused on tea cosies. Frank/Cecil is now listed on Etsy and more tea cosies are evolving.

Mountain walk

It has been way to hot and steamy to do much felting lately, so I've been doing a bit of sewing instead. Can't seem to sit still.

I did walk up the mountain in my little town yesterday morning, though, very early. It is about 423m high and has some steep clambering over rocks bits, but the view is so amazing. I never tire of it and I've been doing this weekly for over a year.

This is the view from about one third up.

This second view is from about three quarters up. Starting to get very tired by this stage and the weather is quite humid. No breeze at this stage to offer any relief but it is soooo pretty.

And this is on of the many extraordinary sights from the top. 360 degrees of unimpeded views. And a lovely breeze to cool you down before embarking on the descent.

Finally getting back to this

So. Hi. Welcome to my meanderings. This being very new to me I guess I'll just learn as I go. I haven't had much time to post lately because I've been plotting my latest entry for the felting section of the Sydney Royal Easter Show. I have entered in two sections for the last 2 years. Each time I have managed a ribbon - 2nd each year for non wearable items. Last year I managed a highly commended for the wearable section. So... I hope to do better this time around. I love entering the shows because, well, if people didn't enter, the arts and crafts section wouldn't exist and it is always one of my favourite pavillions. I also respond to the challenge and push myself to experiment with new techniques each time I do this. The items I make for this show either wouldn't have a large buying market, or else take so much time to construct, that I'd never gain fair price. So, they are special, one off, works of art.

This pic is the wearable piece I made last year.

It is titled Spring Coat.

I've used a variety of techniques, mostly nuno-felting,

use a fine silk georgette as the base fabric.