More felting...

Yesterday I dug out the bag of alpaca fleece, the hand carders, the bubble wrap, detergent and some silk and set to work...



I layed the fibres in a grid pattern onto a piece of tissue silk.







The results were small - I can't believe how much it has shrunk - but I was happy with how it had turned out. Next time I might not take the felting so far, to keep the fibres softer, but all in all a successful day...


...until...

I left my felted piece hanging on the line overnight. No problem there, except that I got up this morning and let "The Supervisor" out (AKA our dog Tyler). Turns out she wasn't so impressed with my efforts and tore a hole in the silk as she pulled it off the line with her teeth...



Maybe she smelt the alpaca and thought... well she is a hunting breed afterall...

It's my fault - I left it there and I know she's partial to the fluffly stuff because while I was working yesterday, she'd pick up bits of fleece and start eating them... it was the funniest sight to see her with a big white beard... I just wasn't thinking straight first thing this-morning.

I guess I should be glad that there's only a hole in one section and that after pulling it off the line that she didn't proceed to play with and chew it. Anyway, I now need to work out if this is "repairable" or make "good" of it, or if I throw it back into the cupboard and call it a sample...

Alpaca Felting...

Sometime last year (or was it the year before?...) I was given an alpaca fleece by my Aunty and Uncle who have Sunline Alpacas. It's sat in the cupboard calling to me for some time and each time I look at it, not knowing what to do or where to start. Initially I was going to spin with it - I received an old spinning wheel from Grandma at the same time - but that's a whole new skill to learn and I'm not really ready to start that yet...



So I decided to try my hand at felting. I have felted before - maybe twice - and so have an idea of the principles but I was a bit rusty so I read up on the techniques and then set to work....



I used a large piece of bubble wrap for the rolling, and added some darker wool (not alpaca - can't remember where it came from but I think Mum bought it when she was in Tasmania) for decoration.



I like the shape that it turned out - it started out square but has nice wavy edges and the corners turned into points all by themselves - I didn't manipulate it in any way except to poke the holes in the circle shapes. I wanted a fairly light felt and so it has a loose, holey effect which I like. I probably could be a bit longer too.





This one was just a sample to see how it went and I already have ideas and thoughts of others (and I still have a heap of fleece left). Bring on the weekend!!