Laughing Dog Arts

Monday, February 1, 2010

Nuno Felting


Oh my goodness! I am so excited about this new thing I have made! Talk about feeding my color-a-holic needs! I have wanted to try Nuno Felting for awhile and yesterday turned out to be the day to begin. I looked up on the internet some instructions and found these at the Dharma site: http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/7519337-AA.shtml I laid out some long narrow grass mat, put nylon netting over that, then began layering my colorful roving. I wasn't sure how much of the roving was proper to lay down, this was my first attempt with limited instructions. I laid it down enough so that the colors would be able to felt well.
Then I put my piece of fabric on top of that. This was a fairly loosely woven piece of rayon that I cut off of a too long summer dress I bought at a garage sale last summer. On top of the fabric I layered more roving, following approximately the same design and thickness I had on the other side. I then folded the nylon netting over the top, effectively enveloping the whole business inside the netting. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to do that or not but I did.
Then I rolled everything up tightly inside the grass mat, took it up to the house to wet it down in warm soapy water and began rolling it. I rolled it for about 5 minutes, then opened it up. It didn't seem finished so I rolled it back up but this time I didn't replace the netting on the top. The netting was still underneath though. Then I rolled it for another 5 minutes, opened again and this time it seemed finished so I removed the felted piece from all the netting and mat. This is so gorgeous! I totally love it! It is thicker than I would like, and probably wider too, but the colors are so zippy and bright! I wanted it to be a scarf, and it will work for that use, although it will definitely be warm. It's finished size is about 52" X 10".

Back to the design table, I'm going to make another, thinner one
in different colors. I'll post my results of that one later. Gotta go felt!
Be well.
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10 comments:

Anna Rosa Designs said...

Hi Jan,
I've popped over to visit from Anne's blogspot.
Yeah, she was right about you, talented and exciting.

Love the photo of the hawk. I've never seen one up close.
Oh, I live down under in Australia.
Hugs,
Anna

Anne Huskey-Lockard said...

WOW!!! Love the color on that!
I think I had tried something similar when I was doing a bit of felting *years* ago.....9 at least....but got worn out before I really had it felted enough. Or maybe I had too much roving......
The panel is stunning!

XXOO!!
Anne

Jan said...

You can't have too much roving!!;-) After this piece I can see I will need more roving. It is a tiring process, all that rolling. I hope I'm not sore tomorrow.

Ro Bruhn said...

This looks fabulous, such wonderful colours. Did you actually sandwich your piece of fabric between the layers? Where I was taught nuno felting we didn't do that, we just built up our rovings, maybe that's why yours was thicker. Thanks for commenting on my blog too.

Karen S said...

I love the colors you used -- I think the black makes the others pop!

Jan said...

Thanks for coming by, Karen. I'm with you, the black really helps!

Anonymous said...

Wow!... I never tried anything like that!...it looks beautiful, Jan!..you are one talented gal!
gypsy

Jan said...

Thanks Gypsy! It was surprisingly easy since I had everything I needed, just jumped in and did it.

April said...

Cool beans, Jan! I love it!

Martha Bright said...

Totally cool! Got to try this...