How time flies and felt flowers

I have been very busy although this blog certainly doesn't show it.  I've been making flowers for a new friend who has a business called Sassy Hats.  We have a business deal where I make flowers and a few bands for her hats.  They are all felt - hats and flowers and bands.  I'm loving making the flowers and hat bands.  It's loads of fun.  I don't want to bore everyone with tons of pictures of flowers.   But here's one and then a beautiful picture of our crab apple as seen from our kitchen window this morning.  These flowers are not quite finished.  I added centers to them all. But you get the idea.

    

Knitted then Nuno felted shawl

Large Nuno pieces are difficult to handle.  They have to start out so large to end up big enough in the end.  I like how it came out though.  The colors are a bit too bright or dark or something.  But, I do like the finished piece.   I'm going to make another but use more subdued colors of wool.  I've also got a couple of plain scarf/shawls that I am going to use to make Nuno shawls.  I'm not sure of the fabrics, so it will be interesting to see how they come out.  One of them is Viscose and Silk.  The other I have no idea.  Both have very loose weaves, so I'm hoping that means they will accept the wool.  Stay tuned to find out.  This piece was created by knitting some lace weight wool and tencel yarn using 25mm needles (yes - huge needles).  Then I added the wool (turquoise and white), silk (pink) and bamboo (brown).  Then proceeded to rub and roll and throw.  I love the backside too which you can see at the top where it is rolled over a bit like a collar for the picture. 

Reversible Handbag

Today's adventure involved making a reversible handbag.  AS you can see the two sides are completely different.  I admit I much prefer the white and gray side to the colored side, which surprised me.  Although the colored side is also pretty.  I actually have not yet attached the handles because I can;t decide what method to use.  There are several that I like: buttons, knots, stitched...I'll decide once it's dry.  It's pretty thick so it is taking a very long time to dry.  I suppose I could throw it in the dryer, but I'm afraid it might get distorted.  If it's not dry tomorrow when I want to do the handles, I will probably try the dryer.  

Meanwhile, in the morning I am meeting with two friends to talk felt.  One that makes knit hats and then felts them in the washer and one who is amazing at making needle felted animals and other things as well as wet felt.  In fact she is the one who originally introduced me to felting.  So all of this is really her fault.  Ha!  

Felt flowers

I'm experimenting with felt flowers this week.  Wet felted with wool and silk.  The first one I made (red one with white silk) seemed rather large, so I made a small one (purple).  I don't care for the pruple one.  It's different wool and too thick.  I also think it looks the least like a flower.  I like the pink and white one which I used pink silk roving and white Brown Sheep wool roving to make.  I'm using a resist with a hole cut in the center so the petals are attached at the center and don't require ant stitching together.  It works out quite nicely.  I'm not sure yet what these flowers will end up as.  Hat adornments, necklaces, brooches, purse adornments,............

  

Really different shawl

I made this shawl by first knitting a large rectangle with some lace weight silk & mohair yarn and a huge set of needles.  Once that was done, I felted it using merino wool and alpaca locks.  I really love the way it came out although the length shrunk much more than I had planned on.  I'm experimenting with more items like this where I knit a piece first and then felt.  It's really labor intensive, but fun!