Felting Picspam

[apollinav]

~feels accomplished~

Today I looked at my last picspam post and I realized how much progress I've made since April.  I can now identify my wool breeds by touch.  I'm dyeing my own raw wool, raw silk, and raw bamboo fibers.  I'm slowly mastering three techniques - wet felting, nuno felting, and needle felting.  And I'm able to look at wool roving and know roughly what my finished piece will look like - sometimes I'm able to make that happen. 

I've progressed a fair bit since my erm... 'lump o' wool' disaster, so I figured I'd share a handful of pics with you.

Picspam cut.

 

The first is undyed alpaca with curled locks of unprocessed wool for texture.
The second nubbly falklands wool. It was a really slow felter, but it's very nice.

Here's another alpaca bag, and you can see the lining I put into it.  The bottom is decorated with a hodgepodge of wools, silk and glitz.
*grins*  I SOLD this bag.  *dances*

Elf booties.  I can't help myself.  I think the next pair needs a really big curl and a bell.

Both scarves are felted in the spiderweb technique, but using different wool breeds.  I think you can see how the blue/green one drapes much softer - it's primarily merino, bamboo, and silk.  The rainbow is lusterous and a combination of wensleydale and dorset sheep.

The first pic is of habotai silk I dyed this morning - I haven't decided if I'm going to nuno felt it or leave as-is.  The second scarf is really long, so I've doubled it up, but it is amazingly gorgeous blue faced leicester wool.

Both of these were done in the nuno felt technique of laminating wool to silk.  The first is silk habotai and the second is silk chiffon.  I have a lot of nuno felted pieces in the works right now, but it takes sooo long to complete a project.  They're done in stages.  This is really one area where I want to concentrate my efforts to learn new tricks.  Nuno felting is very versatile.

Well, I think that's all the picspam I'll unload on you today.  I'm about to crate off a mess of handbags and scarves to the museum and I hope they sell well.  *crosses fingers*  The more bags I sell... the more wool I can purchase... it's a vicious cycle.

And this is where it all starts:


 

 

Comments

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

Thank you! LOL - about that reverse taxidermy - I was looking at the pics of your laid out feathers and I just knew how many hours you have left to go. I'll be very disappointed if you don't document this for some kind of costume-con contest later on.

Oh, and it hit me.

Vultures. Birds of Carrion. The ORIGINAL Death Eaters.

[droxy.livejournal.com]

I havent been documenting it. Most contests I am are for "pride". I tried entering patternreview.com contests. No luck. I am competing in day wear for one, and more experienced seamstresses.

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more along the lines of a con event competition - I'm sure there's something more appropriate for you than patternreview. I don't know how appreciative they are of 'fantasy themed' submissions, but your work definitely merits recognition.

[droxy.livejournal.com]

HP cons have no costume contests. If there is going to be one, I'd probably have to organize it. If I organize it, I'd probably be stuck judging it, which means I can't enter it. HP cons never have had an offical costume contest.

At prophecy there was a sort of one, but the DJ wasn't supposed to do it.

Dragon con is different, but that's 40,000 people. I am a rank AMATURE compared to those people. But Snape won one year at the yule ball. I won second place as dumbledore, even though my hubby as the dark lord was MUCH better.

Bottom line, fan appreciation is what matters. Contests and competions can be political or "stacked". Example Dragon con has fair rules, but a novice contest entry could be someone who has made costumes professionally for 10 years. I am self taught and been at it for 3, and work a day job. I've seen that level work, I don't even bother entering those. But I did once for the experience of it. I am glad I did. I don't envy the judges and the winners really deserved to win. =)

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point. *sigh* You're just putting so much work/effort into it. The natural teacher in me is screaming 'document it for posterity' 'document it to teach it' 'document it for credit.' And everytime I hear you mention, 'it only has to survive one event,' I cringe. To think it might not survive - that's tragic.

[droxy.livejournal.com]

Parts will survive, but hats are fussy things. It's the feathers and all...I am not sure how this thing is going to play out.

[apollinav.livejournal.com]

If it doesn't survive, we will have to plan a proper buriel.

I'll bring the wine.