rosiepink

Felt Lampshades - Work In Progress

This week we've been making nuno felt from scrim and merino roving and creating the basis for lampshades from it, like the one below.  (They are all currently works in progress and need stitching yet to finish them off yet, but here is what we have so far!).

 

Nuno translates as "fabric" in Japanese and is easy to make.  (Please come back soon to see a tutorial on how to make nuno felt like this from scrim and merino wool).

We deliberately made the nuno felt quite thin so that when the light is on the felt glows and looks really cosy...

 

We layered two pieces together to make an unusual top and bottom to this one...

 

and a needle felted flower (temporarily pinned in place!) makes a pretty addition...

 

Adding silk to the roving before wet felting produces a beautiful shimmery look so the lamp is attractive both during the day and at night when glowing.

 

Hope you like them so far, when they are finished we'll post a pic so you can see how they turn out!

Some Pretty Things

Well, it’s all go here, busy, busy, busy!  But first some eye candy – I’ll assume you are a fibre lover and appreciate this gorgeous skein as much as me and mum - yum!

     

A trip for two days to London this week included a dash to 4 knitting shops/departments – Loop (delicious!), Liberty (lots of Rowan – yum!), John Lewis (lots more Rowan but let’s face it too much is not enough!) and I Knit (lots more fibre lovelieness!  This is where I finally caved in and bought this beautiful Colinette - I wasn't supposed to buy anything given that between us we already have enough wool to last a lifetime!).  There were no projects in mind, I just wanted to see all the wonderful yarns and yarn shops!  I’m sure you understand.  We still haven’t had any time to play with our new spinning wheel to make our own but I can’t wait especially after seeing so many beautiful yarns this week and getting ever so inspired!   This particular yarn is 100% wool so will felt into our wet felt projects beautifully!

A trip to the British Museum was also a must – there are so many beautiful and inspiring artefacts to see, here are some favourites:

 
Three terracotta wall tiles from 600-500BC, from the Nabu Temple, Borsippa

 
Faience Beads from 2250BC, from Tell Taya

 
Glass jar from 750BC.  Not sure where it’s from but its beautiful!

We have also been busy dyeing again this week for our next lot of scrim bundles, which will be available soon at Etsy and Ebay.  We dyed about 70 metres and have the turquoise and purple fingers to prove it!  Its quite an undertaking to dye that much in one go but its worth it when you see all the beautiful colours emerging...

 

Now we need to make some lampshades, finish some pictures, do some more dyeing, learn to spin….