Needle Felting with Lynda and Lindago

My friend Lynda invited me to participate in a new felting class she's developing. She discovered that Lindago Alpaca Farm near in Neenah owns a needle felting machine, and they rent time on it to other people.   This has totally revolutionized her felting production, as the needle felting machine can shorten the hands-on felting time dramatically.  

She set the class up so that we'd each make-and-take a felted scarf that could be finished in just a couple of hours.  The photo above is my scarf as I laid it out -- painting with dyed wool.  I used my usual color pallet - blues and purples with a touch of green.   She also had some dyed locks which I used as embellishments. 

She started the morning by showing us what was possible -- with some of her own beautiful woven and felted works.  Some with inclusions like beads or silk and ribbons ...  Neat and inspiring stuff!

We painted with wool on a cheesecloth base (also dyed) which gave the pieces structure and stability.

 My scarf in it's entirity, laid out next to Karla's.

 This is how it looked after having run through the needle felter.  You can kind of see the lines of the needles ans they punched through methodically.

 The feeder tray for the needle felter also has a light box to help you judge the density of the fiber you're feeding through.

 Here it is on the other side, where the different layers have been felted into a single layer of fabric.
We ran each scarf through the machine 3 times in total.  2 times with the top up, then 1 time with the back side up. 

 After the needle-felting come the finishing with wet-felting.  Lynda brought out an old bamboo curtain.  We laid out our scarves (now wet with water and Dawn dish soap) on the bamboo. Then we rolled up and began agitating it.  This was so much nicer and shorter than I remember wet-felting before --which took hours!  This was 10 minutes tops.  Made all the easier and more fun with work songs -- kind of like that scene from Outlander where they were waulking the tweed ...

 More wet-felting with the Ladies.

 Lynda leads us through the process / technique

 This finished scarves.  It never ceases to amaze me that a class-full of students given the same assignment will all come up with very different final products.

I still want to add some beads for bling and glitz.  Lynda showed us how to add beads as a felter would, by string the beads on a woolen yarn, then laying it on the felted fabric, then using a needle felting tool to push it into the fabric.  This needs to be wet-felted to secure it. But so much easier than stitching them in one at a time!

 

Karla with a dyed Merino Wool roving, worn as a feather boa -- to go with the python boa she wore a few months ago at the ren fair when she was checking out the snakes on display!  She looks much more relaxed here!