Free Tutorial Project: Felt Cloud Decoration.

Finished Size: the cloud is approximately 9cm width by 4.5cm long.

Required:

• White base felt
• Felt for eyes, with matching thread
• 100% polyester toy stuffing
• White embroidery thread
• Black embroidery thread
• ribbon
• Sewing needle
• Tracing paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Any other decorations you may require.

Gener­al Instructions:

1. Trace the cloud template below on to tracing paper and cut out.

• Draw around the template onto your white felt to create the front cloud shape, remember to turn the template over to draw the back cloud shape on the second piece of felt.

• Cut the cloud shapes out with a pair of scissors.
• Cut out two circles for the eyes from your coloured felt and sew these onto the front cloud shape.
• Decorate the rest of the cloud’s face with either stitch, or fluffy fabric pens (if you have them).
• Sew both ends of the ribbon into the reverse side of the top edge, of the front cloud shape.
• Place the front cloud shape onto the back cloud shape and begin edge stitching together, being careful to leave a hole to fill the cloud with toy stuffing. To edge stitch you can use either a simple edge stitch or a blanket stitch.

• Once you have stuffed the cloud close the hole with stitch.

Ideas:

Why not hang the cloud by your window, so you can see it playing in the sky.

What about attaching the cloud to your keys as a ­­keyring.

Or you could leave off the ribbon and instead once you have finished the cloud attach a brooch, so that you can wear your cloud on your favourite jumper or bag.

Customer Question: How much wool will I need for making Dreads & Hair Falls?

The amount of roving you need to buy will depend of several things. To give you examples of considerations for calculations I have chosen the Merino wool I supply at www.SarasTextureCrafts.com

Length – The length of your dreads. 100g of my coloured Merino is approx. 410cm/4.10m in length and as I hold my stock in mostly uncut lengths if you were to order 2 units of 100g they would come as 1 very long length (approx. 820cm, or 8.2m). So you can cut them to your length as you work. You will find some colours may measure longer and other shorter, it truly depends on thickness and dyed weight of the fibre as they come off of the mill machine.

Width – The width of your dreads. The width of roving varies per colour and is slightly uncontrollable along the length so it is something that we don’t give dimensions on usually as fibre sellers, because if you come back it may vary by a small degree.

Number and head coverage – How many dreads do you need to make.

Whilst I will not be able to calculate your project for you, I can tell you what most of my dread makers buy and how they buy it;

For pencil thin dread fall attachment dreads they buy 200-300 grams per colour and probably get around 4-5 dreads per 1m length. Rough calculation would estimate that this could give you around 12-15 pencil dreads depending on how you work.

For pencil thin dreads that are permanent full head attachments, they usually buy between 500-600g per colour.

As I’m not a dread maker myself, I can’t always accurately advise what is best as design, colour, head cover and length all play apart in working out how much you might need… but I hope the above information has given you some idea?

My solid Merino colours are always restocked, so if you find you should need more, just give me a shout and I can let you know where to find it.

I also have a Merino colour card in my shop which might help you pick your colour options.

You can buy your fibre, felt, spinning, weaving and knitting supplies at www.SarasTextureCrafts.com

Book Review: Spin Art – Mastering the Craft of Spinning Textured Yarn

 Spin Art – Mastering the Craft of Spinning Textured Yarn

 By Jacey Boggs

 Published by Interweave Press 2011

 I waited patiently, like most for this book to be released on Amazon, so was thrilled when it arrived. Flicking through the pages I immediately wanted to get the wheel out and start playing with fibre in a new way.

 The book comes with an instructional DVD, so I thought I should review them separately, within the same review.

Book

This is a great book… easy to read and clean layouts coupled with plenty of pictures and illustrations make the text much easier to follow. I do feel like I understand the processes discussed enough to have a go.

You do really have to think about your wheel, it’s set up and your process of spinning and this doesn’t make this a beginner book by any means; however, it is a great way for more advanced spinners to relook at their spinning techniques.

The book is cut into two main parts; working with singles and plied yarns. With each part split again into groups of techniques and ideas within these techniques.

It is a really inspiring read.

DVD

Jacey is engaging, interesting and knowledgeable and so it’s fantastic to have a DVD of Jacey showing us a variety of techniques and her tips and tricks behind spinning them.

The DVD is split into helpful categories of information and the techniques themselves are split over three key areas: Singles, Plies and multi-plies… similar to the book, however not necessarily in the same order as the book. In my mind it would have been great if the DVD had some kind of index at the end, so I could go straight to the technique I wanted to see again after the first viewing… however, I can scroll through it easy enough.

You will find that the DVD is purely an aid to the book and not really a stand-alone project, as not all yarn book yarns are captured and talked through on the video. I would have loved to see some of the other book yarns talked through on the DVD, especially the tail spinning; however, I know I can find these videos by other yarn artists on YouTube, if I need them.

Conclusion: I don’t think this is a book I could work my way through from start to finish as one large yarn project, as it has far too much in there to practise, perfect and understand. That’s not a bad thing though… it means it will become a great source of reference!

I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in taking their spinning in a more arty direction. It is a great starting point and certainly a book I think you could refer back to time and again.

Here is the link to the book… Spin Art – Mastering the Craft of Spinning Textured Yarn on Amazon

Free Tutorial Video: Drum Carding Basics – Part 3

All Drum carders, Fibres and Batts can be bought through www.sarastexturecrafts.com

Customer Question: I have just been given 5 fleeces for Felt Making… Help!

Feltmaking with fleece can be very rewarding, even if it is hard work to process from the start. Five fleeces will take a considerable amount of prep time and over the course of a month or so of good weather you should have them processed enough for felt making.

Traditionally felt makers use ‘tops’ which are processed and dyed (if nec.) for immediate use. Here’s a tutorial… A guide to basic wet felt making. You can find these in my shop at Felt making and spinning shop. Merino is usually the ‘top’ of choice among felt makers.

However, it is entirely possible to use fleece if prepped correctly… I do recommend wearing a good pair of rubber gloves throughout the process until you have dry and clean fleece, as there are certain health issues with handling raw fleece.

Firstly you will need to lay each fleece out on a long table (protect the table with plastic), or if you have a garden the lawn. You will need to ‘skirt’ the edges of the fleece to remove the matted and overly dirty edges (dung mostly). Then you need to ‘sort’ your fleece. This is the process of going over the remaining fleece very carefully to remove grass and other vegetable matter, plus any matted or dug effected areas. Then you are ready for washing.

Washing the fleece will take time and I do recommend buying a large bucket specifically for this purpose. Here are some instructions… Washing fleece. You may need to repeat this process several times depending on how greasy your fleece is. Felt making will require a grease free fleece; otherwise the grease will stop the soap and rubbing action from working.

Once it is dry you should leave the fleece in a container that will allow good air flow, nothing plastic… Fibre care. You will need to prep all of your fleece to begin with, as fleece is best stored without the Lanolin grease.

After this time you can begin carding. As you have so much to process and carding will take a very long time with this amount of fleece I do suggest a Drum carder… The 36 ppi is the one you will need Ashford drum carder. If all of the fleece is prewashed you can card as you go along, keeping the remainder of the fleeces stored ready for later use. Here is where you can start to follow the YouTube videos you saw by me on YouTube.

Some fleeces/breeds will take more prep work than others and some are finer than others, so require extra care.