A meme by any other name is a tag

I was tagged by The Funky Felter today.

I’m supposed to tell you 7 random facts about me.

1. Everything in my life is ruled by the word RaNdOm right now because I have teenage sons– ‘random’ and ‘like’ are the two words most used by teenagers today.

2. Today I am fasting for Yom Kippur.

3.  The last 3 pairs I added to the Black Box were: graphic novel/Marvel comics;Medieval Babes/Farmer’s Daughters; penthouse suite/semi-detached.

4. All three of my cats are sleeping on chairs in the living room right now.

5. Having chosen to ‘quit’ teaching felting as a business I went ahead and booked to teach slippers at my son’s school tomorrow.

6. Did I mention that I’m hungry?

7. For a prude my sense of humour can be decidedly bawdy at times.

That’s me in a nutshell.  If you don’t know what the Black Box is find out over at my other blog.

Below are the rules to the game and also my choices to tag.

The Rules:

• Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
• Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random and some weird.
• Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
• Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Drum roll for the victims honourees please

1. Her Majesty Margo

2. Studio Felter

3. Felting in Fibrespace

4. Andrea Graham

5. WoolWinds

6. Suzanne Higgs

7. Myosotis

Felting Feme Fatale’s all about whom I, for one, would like to know more!

I Felt It Was Time For A Change……

I've spent 5 years trying to grow my felting business -- which consists of teaching mostly – with some success.  But as my parents age and my kids do too I find that there just isn't enough of me to go around.  The pressure to treat felting as a business has caused me to retreat from the studio altogether.  The studio used to be my get away from it all place.  I miss that.

so……..

Today I admit that I am a recreational felter.

Perhaps if I am only dabbling I'll actually spend more time in the studio!  Who knows.

The blog has a new, hopefully more personal look.  I’ve added a blog roll to it including all the fibre arts blogs I look at regularly.  If anyone else would like to be on the list just drop me a line or add a comment.

This has been a hard decision to come to but necessary for my peace of mind.

I will be putting wool up for sale soon as the stash I have far and away exceeds my needs if I'm not teaching or producing for sales. Check back for that.

Blessings & Good Cheer
Helen+ilana=Hi

Some Older Work

Wishing I had time to spend in the studio but……. sigh.  Still my heart is in there:

Sewed this pillowcase out of a piece of felt I made as demo at a fair.

At work on a hat

Overseen by well wisher’s and hanger’s on.

I received this letter the other day

Dear Helen

I recently brushed a massive ball of hair out of my cat’s fur

and, while rolling it up in my fingers to throw in the bin, it formed a very loose piece of felt.

I have never felted anything in my life before and have no idea if cat hair can be felted or even what the first thing to do in felting is.. Here’s where I am so far... any ideas? Or throw it in the bin? Not that I have any ideas about what to make it into. Currently it’s providing support for a crystal ball but it’s very loose and sheds hair like anything. It got a bit wet and started to come apart so my guess is that it mightent work but then people make wool out of rabbit fur so... why not?

Yours,

Confused in London.

Well my confused friend the answer is yes you can felt cat hair. But it takes patience, perseverance and a LOT of cat hair. And by a lot I mean more than you have there!

I haven’t tried wet felting cat hair but I have needlefelted with it. It continued to shed until it was very very very firmly needled. I would expect to needle the amount I see in the second photo down to about 1/3 of the size it is now, maybe further.

Still it looks like you have just the cat for providing lots and lots of hair.

You can get needles at one of these places in your side of the pond.

DevonWoolies or Rainbow Silks or Bloomingfelt or my favourite Wingham Woolworks

Good Luck to you and Sammy. (Glad to see he's still here shedding for England!)

Q&A

Dear Helen,
I am hoping that you can help me, I picked up wool the other day for a felting project.  Once I started the knitting I realized that the yarn had soy fiber in it.  Since I was on deadline, I continued my design making the changes so that I would not have to felt the item.  After working with the yarn I have enjoyed the beauty and thickness of the knitted cloth, my head started to design other ideas that are felted.
Can wool/soy be felted?  It seems that it can be from the reading I have done.  I was hoping that you could guide me and give me any pointers that might be needed with a mixed media.
Many many thanks
Marty Hahn
Auburn, New York

Hi Marty,

Thanks for the question.  I do not knit and then felt.  As I have zero experience with that method I can't speak to it specifically.  (Perhaps someone who reads this blog would care to comment?)

That said however I believe the answer should be yes. 

The soy silk itself won't felt but it should allow the wool fibres to migrate through it and hold it in place.

Shalom Study II & III are both soy silk felted with wool.  I first made cornstarch 'paper' out of the soy silk and then cut the word Shalom (in Hebrew) out of the paper.  I place that over my prepared batt of wool and carried on with felting as usual.  I did use cool water to slow the process down giving the soy silk plenty of time to allow the wool to migrate successfully. Anything over 50% wool content should work just fine.

Nothing beats a sample though.  If I were you I would knit up a square from the wool I want to use; felt it using the method I plan to use for the finished article and see what happens. From the sample I would judge how hot the water should be etc.

Good luck

Feel free to ask more questions and definitely send me photos of the results!!

Blessings & Good Cheer

Helen + ilana = Hi 

Titania's Completed Headdress

Titania's Headdress

I have used a piece of the fabric from her costume and a variety of silks in this one.

Oberon's Headdress & Puck's Flowers