new nuno

I have spent several hours today making yardage of Nuno-felt. I started with some lovely habotai silk in natural white...

Then played around with my new dyes from the Fibre Garden....

It was dyed using clamps to block out some of the brown dye, and using poured dye (not a full bath) so that some areas would be darker than others. After the required simmer, I rinsed and let almost dry. Then laid it out smooth and flat, and drizzled some black and burgundy dye over the lighter areas. After carefully wrapping in plastic, I popped it in the microwave and nuked for a minute!

And it turned out really cool.
Then I started to lay out the fibre. For this I am using Merino roving in natural (actual sheep) colours. A medium grey-brown is the base. I used a slightly grey natural for accent one and a dark brown (almost black) for accent two. Then I laid over some boucle wool yarn in chocolate brown, some curly top wool in natural and brown (dyed along with the silk to match) and lastly some small squares of dyed silk that I trimmed off the rectangle yardage. I tried to anchor the silk with thin webs of roving over top.

The of course I rubbed.... I used the sander again, this time I figured out that some polar fleece covering the sander base would be better than the bare sander (it has a velcro-type surface that was ripping holes in my plastic)... I can still learn as I go! I used the sander for almost an hour total, flipping the silk and merino piece several times. After the first sanding, I flipped it and laid out some circles of merino on the bare silk side to add a bit of texture there. Then continued with three more rounds of sanding.

The fabric seemed well fastened together, although the curly top was NOT well attached, but I thought I may be able to dry needle felt it in after the piece was dry. I gently felted it in hot soapy water in the kitchen sink, gently threw it in the second sink, then rinsed with cold. I repeated the hot / cold routine three more times, getting a bit more rough with the hot wash and the throwing. After the last cold rinse, I rolled it in towels then finger flattened the piece. I steamed it a bit with the iron to smooth out the wrinkles, and have laid it to dry....

Photo of the felt side....

Photo with the silk side folded back.....

I will cut and finish it tomorrow... photo to follow!