Fulled Sweater Projects

 

 

 

 

My friend, N and I took a trip to the thrift store one day...

...and bought several large men's wool sweaters.

I popped them into the washing machine on hot for a long wash cycle...

...and dried them in the dryer.

They came out like little, shrunken miniatures of their former selves...

...in other words, fulled.

We did lots of projects with the resulting 'felt'...

...making purses by cutting off sleeves and box-hemming the bottoms...

...even adding little wool roses, made from strips of the sweater, sewn together.

I started (but didn't finish) a pillbox hat...

...and we just generally reveled in the wonderful, cuttable properties of fulled wool...

...so much less fiddly than real fabric, which needs hemming!!

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All week long, as we did projects that were new to me...

...acid-dyeing, working with fulled wool sweaters...

...and even decorating garments with bleach pens (easy!)...

...I was musing about the nature of the fiber arts in general.

What I realized, even more strongly than ever before...

...is that there really is something for everyone in the fiber arts!

I, for instance, don't really enjoy needle-felting...

...and I can't see myself doing more acid-dyeing (too scary!) or sweater-fulling.

Discovering that I really prefer wet-felting to any other fiber art (so far)...

...doesn't feel limiting to me, though, just liberating...

...and who knows when the techniques I've learned doing these other projects...

...will come in handy?

Artist??

 

In a bookstore yesterday...

...as I dug around the bottom of my purse, looking for a scrap of paper and a pen...

...in order to write my blog address for a new acquaintance...

I realized (for the umpteenth time) that what I really need are some 'business' cards.

Now, it's not a business that I have, exactly...

...so I pondered what to call myself.

Am I an artist just because I say I am??

My cynical bf says, "Only history will tell".

By which I think he means that I'll be long dead before anyone decides for sure. :)

So, in the meantime, I'm calling myself a 'Felt Artist'...

...and now I have cards to prove it!! Grin.

I made the cunning little card holder from a sew-on snap and the re-purposed sleeve of that fulled grey sweater you've all seen before.

Now, I'm official!!

Summer Project Redux

 
 

In my summer felting class, several of us stayed late in the studio quite a few nights in order to try things that weren't actually 'part of the curriculum'.

One evening, I took a piece of white pre-felt and needle-felted stripes of various colors of wool roving onto it.

After it was wet felted, I wasn't happy with the couple of places where the pre-felt showed through.

...so it was put into a pile with a lot of other 'false starts' from my class.

But I've been practicing putting zippers in (no mean feat---
these babies used to scare me to death!!)

...and I wanted to do something cute with this colorful felt.

So...I cut it in half and I made a cosmetic bag!

...lining it with fabric that I re-purposed from a thrift store sheet set.

Now...what will I do with the other half??

Triangular Purse

 
 
 
 
Several years ago, I had bought a bunch of 100% wool sweaters to full (intentionally shrink in the washing machine on hot)
in order to make a pieced wool lap blanket.

This WIP is still languishing in a tote here in my sewing room, but I used a piece of it as a 'pre-felt' to make a purse.

I cut the pattern out of paper first, to check for shape and size. It appears to me that fulled wool will not really shrink much during wet-felting, so take that into consideration when sizing.

I needle-felted colored bands onto the wool...wrapping around the edges well...then wet-felted it. I made a rolled handle with purple roving by using a sushi mat. It works very well to help shrink the cord-like fiber into an even cylinder.

My special tip? Put thin twill tape on the inside of the fiber handle before rolling it, for strength!

When it was all dry, I knotted the cord and machine sewed the purse edges together, leaving a small hole on either side for the handle.

I hand-embroidered all around the edges for interest, and made a hand-cut buttonhole (again with hand embroidery) for
the large button. I ended up making the handle twice, since it turns out that the purse is large and looks better worn across the body like a messenger bag.