Thursday 6 May 2010

Joy Felted Scarf

Here's a thing.   I thought I'd make a stripy layered scarf in merino wool, silk and collected fibres, which is fine as the idea goes.   And I thought I knew better than anyone else.  

When I felt a scarf I lay down about four separate layers of wool which, once I start working them, intermesh - wool has these microscopic scales or spines which latch on to each other - so the scales, the water and soap, the movement of the hands over the wool and eventually later on in the process, the hot water then the cold cause the wool to felt.  
And despite my having read how important it was to layer wool rather than lay 'strata' I really wanted a stripy scarf.   So can you imagine what happens when you just lay stripes?  Yep, there's very little intermeshing and the scarf is basically a series of strips, some of them joined (by luck more than judgement) and there are a lot of holes in the 'joins' where they didn't quite make it.  
Now I could tell you that's the design, and actually it does have some interesting elements to it, but I ended up doing a lot of silk embroidery to this piece to make sure it was completely sound (it was, but holes bother me) - I guess this is part of the learning process. 

1 comment:

  1. not sure my comment came through the first time. love the scarf. it's beautiful. love watching Bones too. Will get Fatal Voyage tomorrow.

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