Felting with Suzanne Higgs – Day 1
March ended with 2 days of felting at the Michigan Fiber Festival Symposium in Kalamazoo, MI. I did 2 workshops with Suzanne Higgs.
Day 1 – Dyeing Habotia Silk & Nuno Felting
1) We started by dyeing 5mm habotia silk with Jacquard Acid Dyes. Mine began with three dye passes using yellow, hot pink and burgundy. This came out kind of “interesting”….. and Suzanne suggested over dyeing it. Why not!! We mixed up a combination of more hot pink than I used the first time, red-orange and a touch of black. It looked like a black mess but once it was rinsed out = VERY nice!!
2) Next we laid out the silk leaving bunched up sections that will give texture.
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3) Then laid out thin layers of wool over the silk and gently rubbed using soapy water to felt the wool to the silk.
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4) I LOVED the end result = looks like tree bark!! I have just enough to make a vest.
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What a fabulous piece of work. Love the texture. Thanks souch for your help at church and friendship . Jenny T
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What an interesting project! The texture is so beautiful!
Very nice use of the lovely fabric you made to make such a fine looking vest. Did you sew the seams or were you able to keep it seamless?beautiful however you did it! Suzanne is a really good teacher, too.
The vest has sewn seams. The shoulders panels are silk doupioni and I used silk habatai to line it.