aliens and Ninjas have arrived (also, more nuno and wet felted scarves )

Another picture of my majestic fuzzy panther ...Baloo
and here they are.....the new ninjas and aliens in a fight to the death...or perhaps they will work out their differences and share a nice cup of tea ?
This is one of my largest nuno felt scarfs..about 5' by 2' . I would like to do larger ones but am limited by table and bubble wrap sizes . The base material is a silk chiffon print and I used 50/50% , Merino/Tencel for the felting . I think it took about 3 hours to lay out an roll . I still prefer the process of needle felting but like the results of the nuno look .



This is a much smaller scarf of chiffon, Merino/Tencel and a bit of alpaca/silk (70/30 blend)
Inspite of the smaller size, it takes just as long to get to the felted stage and perhaps that is due to the resistance of the alpaca/silk to felt .

The pic below shows the backside detail of the fiber migrating through the chiffon .

Above is my first wet felted scarf with merino/tencel on one side and Yak/merino on the other side .
I'm not sure why but it developed a ridged look when felted which added and interesting texture and almost looks like knitting rows . The only thing different in this is the Yak, so am wondering if that will always result in this effect .
The ridges here are because I needle felted merino/tencel into a merino/angora knitted sweater

This is the other side . If you look in the following post, you can see what these last two scarves looked like in the needle felt stage before I wet-felted them .

Horton hears a Who...mystery wet felting machine unvailed...(and a zombie cyclops)

This is my new toy ( that will probably not work for what I am trying but will be fun to try...)
Basic info...and how it is used.....My BF said I should also mention that it is NOT me in this video (which I got from Utube)








I just bought this at the local thrift store and thought the slow rolling motion of the cylinder and the heat from the applied metal bar...might work for some nuno or wet felting experiments . I would need to felt anything about 80% before I put it in here, but it might decrease some of the hours of rolling . (huge "might" )

The cylinder was covered by an outer layer of fabric and an internal thick batt of "something" soft, perhaps Flannel . I stripped these off because they smell musty and I probably wont be able to use them as it is almost imposable to get musty smell out of fabric....though I'm sure I will spend hours trying because I hate to throw anything away : )


This is what the cylinder looks like with all fabric and batting stripped off . Obviously in need of a good cleaning and I'm still trying to figure out how to get the hex nut off to remove the cylinder . Of course, I will paint the whole thing and clean up any lint I find on the motor . It does rotate and heats up but I probably wont use it out of eye sight because old electronics can be a fire hazard . Mixing electronics and water isn't usually very smart either but I am going to try and figure out a way to contain the wet felting in something (none melty) before I wrap it around the cylinder .

Below are a few more thrift store items for my crafting . An interesting medicine cabinet for supplies, a water proof table cover with a nonslip material on the back and some of that weird non-slip stuff to keep rugs from moving .

The "plan" is to use the last material for wet felting instead of the bubble wrap . Layer of plastic on top and bottom of non -slip stuff then lay down the roving . Why...? Because I don't like the cost or clean up of bubble wrap . I assumed that it could just be washed and reused but found that some of the bubbles pop while rolling and water and soap get in them that don't seem to want to wash out ....Very frustrating . Wish me luck in my (as usual) messy and slightly dangerous experiments .
And his is my favorite cyclops of late . Has some features of many of my favorite things...alien, Neanderthal, cyclops, zombie .

More experiments in texture and needle VS wet felting

I have been working on a needle felted scarf the past two nights and this is the backside after about 12 hours of felting . I am still debating water felting it to blend the colors more but then am afraid I will loss all the softness . I really look forward to feeling some wet felting to see what it is "supposed" to feel like . This needle felting is about 1/2" thick and feels super soft but is spongy and has no drape but easily bends around the neck . My only concern is how long will it last ?

The method I use for this is very different then wet felting and I use much thicker layers of wool.

First , I lay down about 6 rows of black roving (east to west), only spreading it out a little to over lap. I then lay much thinner layer of yellow going north to south and another medium thick layer going east to west again . After I needle that for about 6 hours on both sides, I lay down another thick layer of orange on top of yellow...very simple design, as this was an experiment . and needle felted this down for about an hour . At this point, I had done as much as I could with the 8 needle tool and switched to an individual needle .

The whole time I am doing this I am thinking....wouldn't it be faster to wet felt this...but wanted to see if I could retain the softness and achieve the durability on an item this large . I needle felted another 5 hours with the individual needle trying to tighten up any areas missed by the 8 needle tool .

This is the front side and if you click on it , you can see a bit better that there are no "lose wool hairs"...but...will it eventually pill up if rubbed against someones winter coat collar while they are moving about ?
This is a scarf made in a similar fashion , needle felted about 12 hours but I then threw it in a hot water washing machine cycle . This is very durable and probably is closer in texture to body armor then a scarf . It's merino, so it is not rough and scratchy like the crappy wool I wore as a kid but it has lost the fluffy texture of the needle felted scarf . It actually looks better then when I first took it out of the drier . I used an old razor and shaved off some of the black that had migrated over the colors and they are much brighter now .

" To wet felt or not to wet felt...that is the question.Wither tiss better to bear the hours of poking and blood loss or to bear the messy water and suds and outragious rolling ?"


Below is another gorgious fiber package from "Fat Cat Knits" on Etsy . I am in love with her tencil/merino blends . Magical colors and soft as silk , can't wait to start felting it .






...and my kitty seems to think the litter containers I have been collecting and cleaning out for storage belong to him !