Get felt here

Ha ha.  Yes, I made some more felt.  Some time ago I moved on from felting around stones to making flat felt, which was lovely and makes a good mat.  But it's two-dimensional and I need three dimensions!  Then a friend showed me some felt pods she'd been given, and I went straight home and looked up how to make them - I found this tutorial.  Here's a picture of one from the tutorial:

Felt pod by RosiePink

I dragged out my fleece and had a go, starting small in case things didn't work out quite as planned.  I cut a circle from some old bubble-wrappy-type packing (it had foam bonded to it so was quite stiff, which was good), and followed the tutorial step by step.  After the usual rubbing and rolling with warm water and olive oil soap, followed by cutting a hole (scary!), then more rubbing and hot water, I had my first felt pod!

I made it with green wool inside, and grey outside - I always like a pretty surprise inside a bag, so why not inside a felt pod.  My resist (the plastic inside) was a circle 10cm diameter, and the finished pod is about 8cm across and 5cm high. I cut the hole to one side, to make a little "nest" shape for keeping coins or jewellery in.  Later, I stitched some seed beads on for decoration.

The next pod had blue wool inside, and the third, pink wool.

The fourth pod is really the best so far.   I cut the hole centrally this time, and added more layers of grey wool before I began felting.  When fully felted, this one has turned out much more sturdy than the others, which feel a bit thin and may not hold their shape as well.  So for future pods I'm sticking to one layer of the inside colour, then two or even three layers of the outside colour.

Using more layers of wool seems to limit the shrinking that happens during felting, too, as the fourth pod is slightly bigger, even though it was made on the same resist.

Now these small pods are working out well, I'm going to try making a slightly bigger version.  Felty Christmas presents all round this year!

The Tiree pebble

We're on holiday! Last Saturday we caught a really early ferry out of Oban to the tiny island of Tiree, right on the western edge of the Scottish Hebrides. 



There's not much here, but there's beautiful beaches with beautiful pebbles and there's sheep's wool on the fences and beaches (I brought some fleece with me too, just in case). (If you're new to felted stones, see my original post for how I got inspired to make these).



This white wool was from a beach at Hynish, in the south of the island.  I've no idea what breed of sheep this is from! I washed it with hand-soap to remove the lanolin and as much of the dirt as I could and teased it out, then let it dry.  Once it was dry I teased it out a bit more, then made it into a layer I could wrap round a pebble.  It wasn't as easy as using the combed fleece, because in that all the fibres lie in the same direction and it's easier to wrap it snugly round the pebble.  However, I managed, and felted it as usual - the wool did go very baggy during the felting but eventually formed a good and fairly even layer.  (Also in the picture above are too small pebbles ready to be felted with wool from Weardale - I like their little explosive haircuts!).



This white wool has definitely formed felt, but it remains quite fuzzy.  My best felting action cannot seem to get these surface fibres to knit in! I noticed the same thing when I used white fleece from my previous felt kit; other wool types seem to make denser, closer felt - but this has its own character.



So here is a memento of our holiday - a pebble from Tiree, felted in wool from Tiree! And, in this picture, picture nestling in a lovely new dish from Tyrii pottery.

Hoping your weather is as lovely as ours up here x

Have you ever seen anything like these?

Felted stones - they're all the rage in our house right now!

A few days ago I came across this blog by Lisa Jordan and these stones encased in beautiful hand-made, embroidered felt.  I fell in love! Lisa makes these using combed fleece fibres and the traditional felt-making technique of soap, water and agitation.  There's a tutorial on her blog.

Felted stones by Lisa Jordan of  Lil Fish Studios

Last October a friend gave me a felt-making kit (from Ellie Langley of Fleece With Altitude at Slackhouse Farm) which I've been meaning to get stuck into. Well within 24 hours of seeing the stones, I'd got one of my own!

I nipped out to the porch and rummaged through the box of seaside stuff we dragged back from Colonsay last year till I found a suitable stone, and followed Lisa's instructions.  Didn't take long, with soap, rubbing and hot water, to turn fleece into felt.  Previously I had entertained tame ideas of making flat felt to cut into Christmas decorations or something, but this is so much more exciting - I haven't felt (ha! geddit?) this excited about a new project for a long time!

Once my new stone, soft but satisfyingly heavy, was dry, I tried out some half-forgotten embroidery on it.  And this weekend the kids got excited about covering stones in felt, so we have a growing collection....

A week on, I've made four felted stones in four different types of fleece:




Clockwise from top left, these are felted in Wensleydale, Jacob, Sheltand and Blue Faced Leicester wool. I absolutely love them, and there will be many more. Right now I love the natural colours of these undyed wools, but I might do some coloured ones soon.




This white one, with bullion knots and running stitch, reminds me of a sea urchin.  The felt remained quite fuzzy and loose, the fibres didn't want to knit together any more than this. The pale grey Shetland wool on the other hand formed a very even, dense felt very quickly - and you could see that it was going to even before I got it wet as the fibres were short and very fuzzy whereas the white Wensleydale was sleek and long-fibred.




Keep watching for more felted stones here soon...