Saturday 22 January 2022

Start of 2022

It's already the 22nd of January!  Oh, 22nd of 2022... that's a lot of 2s!  It's about time I write something new since my previous blogpost was my Christmas one.

Tatting and other similar activities are still on the back-burner.  I do a little bit here and there but no larger projects that I can tackle at the moment.

Instead a holiday project was to have a go at felting wool.  You know I have those fleeces that I'm spinning and knitting... well, my son had seen a video of someone felting wool using cardboard so we decided to give it a try.

You first have to pull all the wool fibres apart into tiny wisps so that it's all very fine and airy.  Place it all in a cardboard box and make sure the thickness is even everywhere.  Ours was about 4 inches thick initially.


Then you turn the box over and you have a nice "square" of thick wool fibres.
The person in the video we'd seen rolled his fibres in cardboard but we used bubble wrap instead.
So you wet the fibres and then roll them up in the bubble wrap.
And then you have to keep rolling and rolling and then unwrapping and turning
your wool piece and keep rolling until the fibres start blending together.
As you can see we used brown and white wool.

It's not quite finished
but we're getting there!


Otherwise I've been making more newspaper baskets.  I used purple cabbage water to dye the paper for this one.  It gives it a subtle lilac colour.  I dye the rolls first, let dry, then varnish them with diluted varnish  and let dry again before I used the rolls for making the basket.





I've now run out of my dyed rolls so I need to make more!
I finished the rim (will have to show another photo in next blogpost)
but I still have to make the handle.

I made another smaller one that I gave to my daughter:






And there's another blue one of which I just realised I don't have a good photo
(so for next blogpost).


And to finish, a very little bit of tatting.  I really want to keep working on this collar but I just can't tat much at all so it will be a while before I can make much progress on it.  *Sigh*



I hope all is well with you all and that your new year is off to a good start.  I'd love to hear what projects you are currently working on after the holidays.

Best wishes,
Frivole

11 comments:

  1. I like making felt. The newspaper baskets are something I’d like to try. Bizarrely, I’d have to specially buy newspaper to do it!

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    1. Hi Jane, what's your method for felting wool? The rolling method seems quite a long process, I need to investigate other methods.

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  2. How strong will your felting be, I have been adding natural fibre to felt to make a cat like look and feel for a toy I want to make, sadly I don't think the toy will be played with.

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    1. Hi, once the wool fibres are felted, it's actually an incredibly strong fabric. I make slippers out of felted wool and we're planning to make a hat out of this piece when it's finished.

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  3. Happy new year, I love your baskets, that really interest me and I might give that a try, so its on my to do list, I like the way your son gets involved and helps you, nice to see a youngest getting interested in crafting.
    Your collar will look wonderful when you finish it.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Margaret, I hope you give the baskets a go a let me know how you get on. And yes, I'm lucky my son is interested in crafts (he particularly likes wood and making spoons and other objects). He likes "nature" crafts which is great. :-)

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  4. Newspaper baskets are a beautiful and interesting idea.

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  5. So sorry you're still not able to tackle larger projects. BUT it's good you can still do small ones - the baskets are beautiful, and the felting project sounds interesting. Your collar will be beautiful when you are able to finish it. Better a LITTLE progress than none at all, although it is frustrating not to be able to work on something you really would like to work on. Everything is gorgeous and I can hardly wait to see what you make with the felt.
    StephanieW

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your message Stephanie - and yes, you are quite right, better small progress than none at all! I hope you are doing well yourself. :-)

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