michigan fiber festival

Felting at the Michigan Fiber Festival Symposium in Kalamazoo, MI at the end of March. I did 2 workshops with Suzanne Higgs.

Day 2 – Fabulous, Funky, Fun Felt Bag

For this workshop we made felt bags using recycled sari silk as surface embellishment.

Light weight, flexible plastic 1 1/2 times larger than the desired bag size is used as a resist – a middle core/layer to keep the wool from felting in the center of the bag.
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Working from the inside out, thin layers of wool are laid out on both sides of the plastic resist. The inside of the bag will be yellow, with a pink rim folded over to the outside.
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Periwinkle will be the middle color
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and finally the sari silk is wrapped around the entire bag.
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Wet with soapy water, wrap in plastic and start rubbing to felt the wool to the silk
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Here’s how the inside and the outside came out:

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The starting resist size (26″ x 26″) compared to than the final size (15″ x 12″ after folding the edge down).
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Add handles, magnetic snap closure and I’m done!

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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Posts

Felting with Suzanne Higgs – Day 2

Felting with Suzanne Higgs – Day 1