Monday, April 4, 2011

Nuno Felting a Large Scarf

I finally got my hands on some black silk chiffon so that I could experiment felting a large nuno scarf. A nuno scarf is made by felting (or laminating) wool to silk. This makes the wool strong, but lightweight.

Here I have started to lay out the front part of the design but what you are seeing is the back part of the front. Did that make sense? I have to create it from front to back so I laid down the poppies and details first and then the periwinkle is the background. Next I covered it with the silk.

Then I create the design of the back of the scarf so the whole thing is one piece, like a wool and silk sandwich.

Here it is rolled up during the felting/rolling process. The table is covered in plastic but it still made a huge mess. Also, rolling the scarf 600 times plus is very physical.

Here it is at the throwing stage.

And here it is pretty close to done. I learned a few things on this. 1) I used too much wool and it shrunk a lot so now it is too thick for a nice spring scarf like I was planning and 2) because it shrunk so much it does not have much drape to it.
Next scarf I will use less wool on the back so that it will shrink less and more of the silk will shine through! Other than that, I love how the poppies and spirals turned out.

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