rosiepink

Dyeing fabrics for feltmaking

We got messy with some dyes this week.   We hand dyed a batch of open weave fabrics for inclusion in our felt.  When making wet felt items such as felt pods or felt cuffs we love to liberally sprinkle in lots of extra bits to add texture and interest.

Here is the result of several hours of mixing potions in the kitchen!

The trouble is that dyeing is so addictive...we ran out of fabric long before we ran out of ideas for mixing colours.  We used procion dyes to give a nice strong colour.

Here is an example of how we use our fabrics when making wet felt.  The effect depends on the fabric you use and how much it distorts in the felt - but that is the joy of it - you never know exactly what you're going to get!

Coastal Colours - Making Wet Felt Sea Pods

We've made six new pods to add to our spring range of felty homewares.

Here's a couple of pics:

We think these work well when they look like pebbles too.  A random selection on the window sill or a shelf in the lounge can look lovely and beachified! 

Handmade Felt and Machine Embroidered Bag

Here are a couple of pics of an experimental handbag that we created - made from a piece of our green handmade felt and free machine embroidered with red roses.  It is quite small, approx 7in across the base, just perfect for a few necessities.  The handles are made from handmade felt cords oversewn by machine with red thread.

Felted Jewellery

One of the things we really enjoy making is felt jewellery.   It's particularly good for this time of year as it has a cosy, warm feeling to it.  Although making felt beads is a time consuming process it is very enjoyable and relaxing.

          

We recently ran a felt jewellery workshop - the photos in this post show some of the samples we made to take along to show the ladies.  We had great fun and they made some wonderful creations including bracelets, necklaces and corsages.

    

We also made lots of individual sample beads to take along (some are pictured below) to demo how to embroider and decorate the felt with glass beads etc.

      

Felt Pod, Vessel and Vase Wrap

Recently we've been making some pods and vessels for Coastal Creatives boutique gallery in Bournemouth.  Here are some of the things we created...

Blue merino vase wrap embellished with Wensleydale curls, silks, hand-dyed scrim, yarns.  Stitched together with seed beads on the seam:

Natural wool vessel made using the resist method, then shaped by forming on a glass vase:

Natural wool felt pods embellished with a selection of yarns, silks and beads: