Felted Shawl

I have a series of photos that can take you through the stages of making a nuno-felt shawl. First lay the underlying silk on a large surface (over bubble layer - a pool cover cut to size in this case). The silk is hand dyed by me, and the rectangle is trimmed to curve 2 of the edges a bit so that the ends are tapered.

The next step is to lay out the merino roving into a balanced design... I used pink, purple and blue and accented with black dots. there are lots of areas of plain uncovered silk to keep it light and silky.


close up of the silk pieces and yarn embelishments.

This is how it looks after a thorough spraying of the water and soap mixture.

The wet wool is then covered in plastic and rolled tightly over a pool noodle (see the yellow peaking out). Tied with polar fleece bands, the fun begins. I rolled this tube by hand for about 3 hours... lots of breaks and lots of unrolling to check and roll in the other direction. It took me almost 2 days because it is tedious and hard on the arms and back.

Close up shot of the fibres after felting... but before the fulling (shrinking)

After hot washes alternated with cold, several times to shrink the whole thing, you get a slightly wrinkled silk/ wool shawl. Light and textured and kind of cool!

The photo of the finished shawl in front of the pool table I used for a nuno-table! You can see the sheer silk areas surrounded by the wool areas. It is very light and drapes well. This is my first BIG fabric piece and it was a LOT of work!