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By Melissa, March 21, 2010 9:30 pm

My friend Kevin is getting married in May and since he loved my table-runner-turned-wall-hanging when he was here last September, I decided to make one for him and his lovely bride, April, as a wedding gift.

Continue reading 'A Wedding Wall-Hanging'»

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By Melissa, June 27, 2009 11:45 am

A few weeks back I took another fabulous class at The Fiber Studio on making felted table runners (oh crap, Pam just posted the summer class schedule…brb).  As I was laying out my first layer of merino and trying to figure out how I would ever be able to keep a felted table runner kitty hair-free, a thought came to me – what about that giant blank wall hanging out over my newly repositioned couch? Voilà! My runner had just turned into a wall hanging.

Continue reading 'When a table runner becomes a wall hanging…'»

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By Melissa, April 21, 2009 9:05 pm

Saturday I took another class at The Fiber Studio – Nuno Felted Summer Collage Scarf taught by Jill Lynn.  What a great class!!

The night before I did some frantic last minute shibori dyeing of some ugly silk, cotton and linen shirts I bought at a local thrift store.  What else are second bathroom bathtubs for anyway?

Jill was great at sharing all sorts of  little tips and tricks, ensuring we all got great results.

The front of my scarf consists of my shibori dyed silks, cottons and linens, along with some devoré satins and velvets I picked up at The Fiber Studio.   The backside is merino top and several silk hankies I also picked up at The Fiber Studio.

I love the incredible textures you get in nuno felting!

I can’t decide which side I like better.  The silk hankies give such a beautiful ethereal effect.

Another great felting success!

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By Melissa, February 2, 2009 9:31 pm

Last summer I made some felt beads that were instantly declared (much to my dismay) as instant Kitty Favorites.  Despite my efforts to hide them away until I could do something with them, they were always discovered and started showing up everywhere around the house.  The Canadian decided they looked like little pieces of sushi.  I gave up.

Today one mysteriously found it’s way into the water bowl.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty.

Good thing they still have 10 more hidden around here to keep them busy.

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By Melissa, October 20, 2008 12:42 am

Yesterday, I was finally able to take a class I’ve been wanting to take ever since The Fiber Studio’s class list came out last summer:  Nuno felting, the Japanese technique of felting fiber onto fabric, most often wool onto woven silk.  The results are stunning.

The class supply list called for a silk scarf base, so I brought a few of my scarves from Double Dyeing since I wasn’t sure what size/weight would work.  A few people were worried that my scarves would be too thick to felt properly, but the instructor, Kris Post, encouraged me to try one anyway.  She said I might have to put some extra muscle into it, but I should be able to get one done in the four hours we had for the class.

I purposely brought scarves that were out of my color comfort zone (you know how I love my purples) in an attempt to broaden my creative horizons.  I did struggle a bit choosing colors, but I think more so because I was unsure of what my end result would be and didn’t know what color choices work best for this technique.  Do contrasting colors work better?  Complimentary?  Tonal?  As I quickly learned, it’s really hard to not love your end results in nuno felting.  Everyone in my class had very different tastes and color choices and they all resulted in beautiful scarves (even the orange/brown/blue one that I was sure I wouldn’t like).

Since our scarves were most likely to be worn next to the skin, we chose our wool colors from Pam’s beautiful merino top selection.  Merino is one of my favorite wools.  So soft.  Such vibrant colors.  So hard not to pick all of them.  After much debate, I chose these.

The brighter blue color on the left is actually a Tencel/wool blend to add some texture and sheen.

After our colors were chosen, we laid out our fibers on our silk scarves and got to work.  We rolled, soaped, patted, dropped, rubbed, and threw our scarves until the merino had worked it’s way through the silk and latched on tightly.  A quick rinse, soak in a diluted vinegar bath and one more rinse of warm water and I was done.

And then I looked at the clock and realize I still had 1.5 hours of class left.  Oops.  Apparently I worked my scarf a little faster than I needed too.  I think in reality what happened was I chose a simpler design for my scarf than the intricate floral vines or 3″x3″ grid layouts some of my classmates chose.  I was halfway done with the felting before they were even finished with their wool layout.  Anyway, I decided not to let the last half of my class go to waste…and finished a second scarf.

I love how the nuno felting takes the shibori dyed scarves to another level.  I have another batch of dyed scarves brewing in my garage right now.  I can’t wait to do more nuno!!