Chrissie’s kindness
24 Feb 2012 1 Comment
in felt, multimedia Tags: Chrissie Day, foot lasts, leaves, mulberry, silk
Great excitement this morning when I picked up not one but two parcels from the sorting office. They were from Chrissie, who has not only lent me some foot lasts, but was also kind enough to include a small present – an undyed mixed media pack, including silk cocoons, silk throwsters’ waste, silk rods, bleached mulberry bark, skeleton leaves and silk threads.
Most of these I’ve never used, so I’m really looking forward to experimenting with them. Thanks so much Chrissie!
Washing the fleece
23 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: fleece, lanolin, salad spinner, scouring, sheep, wool
The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the frogs are stirring in the pond. Time to make a start on cleaning my fleece!
As ever, the advice on how to do it was contradictory. Magdalen, who gave me the fleece, wrote on her note that I should soak it in lukewarm water for a couple of hours without soap. Debby, my tutor at Morley College, said that if I wanted to dye it (which I do), I should put it in cold water with a little detergent, as the lanolin in the fleece resists dye because it is too oily.
Online, the consensus among spinners seemed to be that using hot water and dishwashing detergent was best, as long as you don’t agitate the fleece and don’t let the water get cold, as this causes the lanolin to reattach itself to the wool. Eventually I decided to use the method outlined by Fuzzy Galore. But as I can’t do all the fleece in one go anyway, I will probably try different techniques on different batches.
When I laid it out on a plastic sheet in the garden, it became clear that it wasn’t in one piece, like a sheepskin rug, but several large clumps. I picked off some of the grubbiest bits of dung, plus the largest bits of straw, thorny twigs and other vegetation.
Then I picked a clump that didn’t look too grubby, filled the kitchen sink with hot water, added some Fairy Liquid, and gently pressed the wool so that it was submerged in the water. I left it for 15 minutes, by which time the water was filthy, scooped out the wool into a bowl, drained the water and repeated the process. The water wasn’t so dirty this time.
Then it was two 15-minute rinses, again in hot water but without the detergent. The final rinse water was a little cloudy but not dirty.
I was a bit worried about spinning it in the washing machine, as many people seem to recommend, so I put a few handfuls in the salad spinner and span it by hand! This was actually very effective and didn’t take too long.
Then I laid it out on some net curtain on top of a rack above the bath to dry. I’ve managed to do three batches, which I reckon is about half the fleece.
As you can see, the wool is much whiter than it was, and it’s considerably less smelly! It doesn’t seem to have felted anywhere, so either I have handled it really well, or it’s going to be difficult to get it to felt! 
Machine embroidery on felt
22 Feb 2012 10 Comments
in embroidery, felt Tags: honeycomb felt, machine embroidery, raw fleece, sheepskin, water soluble film
One of my new year’s resolutions was to try to get to grips with machine embroidery. I still haven’t found a way to drop the feed dogs on my ancient sewing machine, so for now I’m restricted to practising at college.
At the moment I’m making mostly 3D felt, such as pots, Kindle covers and slippers – and it’s not very easy to machine embroider these items once they’re complete. Therefore I was interested in this post by Ruth Lane on The Felting and Fiber Studio blog about stitching on dissolvable fabric and then felting it onto the fibre as part of the felting process.
So yesterday I stitched a pattern like a flower – a circle with radiating narrow petals in black thread on plastic water-soluble film. I made a pot using a flat resist in the usual way, adding the stitching on top of one side as the final layer, and started rubbing.
The film dissolved without any problems, but because the stitching was quite fine (single rows of straight stitch, except the circle), the “petals” soon started moving around. Not a problem – the original petals were of irregular sizes, so there was no beautiful pattern to spoil.
More of a problem was that the single lines of stitching didn’t really want to felt into the wool. I suspect the thread was probably polyester rather than cotton (it didn’t say on the reel), and that there wasn’t enough for the wool fibres to grip onto. The circle of stitches around the rim of the pot did felt in better.
In the end I laid some fine wisps of wool over the stitching, but at too late a stage for it to felt properly onto the wool beneath. Final result below:
In the afternoon I decided to try again, with another new technique – honeycomb felt. I tried making honeycomb felt once before, not long after I started felting, and it was fairly disastrous: not having any marbles, I used styrofoam pellets, which flattened and stuck to the felt.
This time I used proper marbles, trapped between four layers of wool and overlaid with more stitching (thicker lines this time!). I had to rub very well between the marbles, and did manage to roll it a bit, though it was rather bumpy! The washboard was much easier to use and more effective.
The piece provoked various unflattering comparisons from my tutor and fellow students, mostly centring around boils and pustules! Personally, I prefer to liken it to volcanoes and lava flows. 
Finally, after a long day at college, I got home to find an entire sheep’s fleece in my front garden, delivered by a friend from Ireland. As I’m not sure what breed it is, Chrissie has suggested that I make it into a raw sheepskin rug.
However, I would like to have a go at cleaning, carding and even dyeing at least part of it – so expect some future posts on this!
Felting on film
19 Feb 2012 1 Comment
in markets Tags: Brixton Village, documentary, felting, filming, Giulio Robino, Makerhood, pop-up stalls
It’s been a strange weekend, as I’ve been followed round by an Italian film crew, recording my every move and conversation.
It started a few weeks ago, when the co-founders of Makerhood, Karen and Kristina, and I were asked to do an interview for a documentary about changing work patterns. Giulio Robino, an Italian journalist and photographer, won an award for his last documentary Toxic Europe, on the link between organised crime and the dumping of toxic waste.
Now he is working on a project about how, in an era of high unemployment, people are looking at other ways of working – going part-time or freelance, and doing voluntary work or trying to supplement their income by setting up their own small-scale businesses. Apparently, as a “freelance worker in the hard industry of culture” (as Giulio puts it) and doing voluntary work with Makerhood as well as trying to sell pieces I make, I am an ideal candidate to feature in this documentary!
Setting up the gear
So on Friday morning two guys turned up with all their gear to film me making a felt pot. Davide, on sound, seemed a bit disappointed that felt-making was not a particularly noisy process, the loudest sounds being the occasional squeak from non-soapy bubble wrap! His eyes lit up, however, when I picked up the electric sander. “Fantastico!” he exclaimed, as he adjusted the volume control.
It’s funny how a process that I’m so familiar with suddenly turns into a mass of fingers and thumbs in all the wrong places! I also explained that the rubbing and the rolling is quite a long and laborious process – but at least the repetitive nature will give them lots of footage to choose from when editing.
Saturday was a much longer day. I’d organised some Makerhood pop-up stalls in Brixton Village, so the crew arrived at 8am to film me packing up my suitcase and leaving the house, walking down the hill and through the middle of Brixton. I definitely felt rather embarrassed, as people kept staring and wondering who I was!
They continued filming throughout the day as we set up the stalls and took them down, talked to customers and even sold a few items. They also did some filming at Cornercopia, a great shop and restaurant in Brixton Village that focuses on locally produced food and drink.
Thanks to the unhelpful and somewhat short-sighted attitude of the market management, most of the filming had to be done from inside the shops looking out. When ESP and I had lunch at Cornercopia after I finished my morning shift on the stalls, he found it very disconcerting to be eating while a camera was trained on him from inside the shop! And of course I was miked up, so I had to be careful about what I said throughout the day and remember to turn the microphone off when I went to the loo! 
All in all, it was quite exhausting, and I’m happy to sink back into anonymous obscurity. I haven’t seen any of the footage, so I’m hoping I don’t look too fat or incompetent in the final edited version!
Slippers – the final word!
13 Feb 2012 7 Comments
in felt Tags: Brixton market, felt slippers, lasts, shoes
So here they are – the final slippers!
Because they are slightly too big for me, I put them on my stall at Brixton Makers’ Market on Saturday to see whether someone might buy them. They attracted a surprising amount of interest – and someone very nearly did buy them, but they turned out to be too small.
Several people asked if I made them in different sizes but didn’t want to commit to ordering a bespoke pair – they wanted to see pairs in different sizes and try them on first. So now I’m in a bit of dilemma – is the demand great enough to make it worth buying foot lasts in different sizes? Also, the weather is (hopefully) going to start warming up, so cosy felt slippers may not be so popular.
However, I know that Chrissie Day makes very pretty felt ballet pumps, so this could be an option for lighter spring/summer footwear.
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