Hey Everyone, welcome back to Story Time Monday.
This year’s retreat sponsored by The Purple Sock of Coldwater, Ontario has come and gone. What a wonderful 2 days we had visiting with old friends and meeting new friends. The line up of workshops was superb and Lynn once again did a great job of organising a fantastic two days of learning and creating.
One of the classes I took was Nuno Felting. I had absolutely no idea what this was going to entail other than I knew it involved water as I needed towels and a spray bottle.
We arrived at class to find this wonderful pile of wool roving to choose from. So many delicious colours – such a hard decision. I changed my mind a few times and finally settled on a variegated blue – perfect for sky.
The background for this piece could be black or white and I chose white seeing how I wanted to make a sky not a scarf like everyone else. Okay I did wear it the next day as a scarf just to say I had and show it off.
We placed a piece of bubble wrap on the table and then the background piece which was silk organza on top of it. The next step was to cover the organza with a the roving. I didn’t cover mine heavily as I wanted the piece to be a blue sky with clouds throughout. A summer sky found on a perfect day at the beach.
Roving on the silk organza
I also added in some silk fibre and metallic yarn to the piece. These had to be placed between the wool roving in order for them to be felted into the piece. If they had just been placed on top they would have had nothing to secure them in place.
Close up of roving and yarn
We added the soap solution which was made of olive oil soap and some water. Placed another piece of bubble wrap on top with the smooth side to the roving and then rolled the sandwiched roving on a pool noodle. Now I have another use for pool noodles.
Ready for rolling
Next we set to rolling, rolling and more rolling – this motion felted the fibres to create the scarf or in my case fabric for a sky. Doesn’t the scenery look great outside. The retreat was held at Geneva Park on Lake Couchiching near Orillia, Ontario.
Me rolling and rolling and rolling
Just when you thought you might be done Lois our instructor would check it and say nope keep rolling. At least a 1000 rolls for this piece and probably more. Certainly a great upper body workout.
Finally done rolling and rinse in the sink the piece was hung to dry.
The scarf completed.
And yes, I would do it again. So many possibilities – so many colours.
I do have an idea of how to use this piece in a quilt – it is all planned in my head.
Happy Quilting!
