Combining Wool and Silk - A marriage made in heaven...

To set up the workshop space for the nuno - felting has been an interesting experience. You just don't know what to expect; drowning furniture, swimming pool conditions... getting out goggles for everybody and keeping the snorkels close by - just in case... I settled on piles of towels hidden under chairs and tables and just as well; they were well soaked and hanging on the washing line by the time people were leaving! But no rushing ahead yet...

I loved the aprons!

I love giving workshops; I thoroughly enjoy watching people following their thought-train, developing an idea from simple information and a few suggestions and even though everybody got the exact same bit of information the final pieces couldn't be more different. The colour schemes, textures and designs are all so unique and yet created by the one and same technique - Nuno felting. Joining Cloth with fibre, best known as combining silk fabric with wool. I was as excited, if not even more so, as the participants themselves about their designs and the final finished pieces! It was great fun and hard work. In the first two sessions we explored the differences between felting wool into cheesecloth and wool muslin. Tedious work but worthwhile, if you want to learn how to felt into fabric; at least I think so, but than I didn't have to do the hard work ;)

The next couple of days we considered different laying out techniques as well as exploring general felting techniques like net-felting and cobweb felting.

Network felting without cloth....

And an interesting piece of cobweb felt .... 

Finally, we worked on the silk fabric; some applied the network technique, others came up with gorgeous flower designs and contemporary pieces. Because we only have 2.5 hour sessions, some had to take their great pieces home to either finish or store until the next session.

Silk scarf....

More beautiful silk scarves!

Some participants couldn't wait until the next session and finished their pieces at home. So we started on a pair of felted wrist warmers introducing resist felting method and adding marbles to add texture.

Adding wool around a piece of cardboard wrapped with netting 

Adding design

wetting the wool

Working the 'felt'

First finished wrist warmers!

Thank you all for joining our workshop; it was great fun and hopefully we'll see you all again!