I started working on some felted pieces that I am planning on putting in the store in time for Christmas shopping. I made three coffee cuffs today. I haven’t done any “small” felting for a while now since I’ve been working on the yurt. It seems I have forgotten a few things. Or perhaps I was just in a hurry 🙂
Here are the three cuffs laid out. I did a very quick layout which is always a mistake in my opinion. The more time you take with laying out your fibers, getting them even etc. the better the end result. But I didn’t do that.
I used a few of the prefelt butterfly cutouts that I had in my stash, indigo dyed merino and yellow/orange silk noil.
This is the same batt that I used for my umbrella tree. It’s got a bunch of different fibers in there and I can’t remember what all I used.
This is an old batt as well. One that I originally used for making slippers. It’s mainly merino and silk noil if I remember correctly. Anyways, when I wet these down, they spread out all over the place and I kept getting ridges when I tried to roll them. So I just ended up doing it all by hand and rubbing them. I fulled them very tightly and put them over a paper coffee cup to dry.
Here they are. They have very organic edges. Usually I do a bit better job with the edges but they will work.
I really like the colors of this one, very autumn colors.
This one turned out better than expected. I don’t really care for butterfly motifs that much.
This photo doesn’t show the variation in colors very well. Perhaps it needs a little hand stitching? But I don’t want to spend too much time on it so I can keep them affordable. I plan on making more of these and the next project will be Kindle and I-pad covers. I also did some free motion stitching on one of my leaf printed scarves and it looks much better. I’ll post about that over at The Fiber and Felting blog next week.
Ruth Lane Art 
They all look great and will appeal to different buyers. A very nice product. Wish I had thought if it. :-)!
Thanks Marilyn!
You’re welcome!
I like them and the organic edges are preferable to straight – they’re pretty and so practical (no more scalded hands!).
We all know that you mustn’t rush felt – it gets the hump and doesn’t behave – but we all still do it from time to time.
Thanks Lyn. I like organic edges but these were just really wonky. I did get them a bit straighter once they were around the cup. I know all about misbehaving felt 🙂
Love them! I like the organic edges too. Felt doesn’t need to be “perfect.” In fact, in my opinion, “the beauty is in the imperfections” like the Japanese wabi sabi. What did you use for your resists? Looks like pieces of plastic.
Thanks Karen – I certainly wasn’t aiming for perfection and I do appreciate the wabi sabi characteristics of felt. These were just acting up a bit. 🙂 The resists are from packing foam. It is similar to the “fun foam” they make for children. It is a nice thickness for resists.
They all turned out great 🙂
I’ve not used batts very much, but they make much nicer organic edges than wool tops, which can be a bit ‘angular’ at times. They look like they really have a nice texture to them aswell.
Thanks Zed – I like using batts but you have to be careful to make sure it is even. Otherwise you end up with problems. They do form a nice organic edge though.
The colours look great when the three are grouped all together!
Thanks – I am trying to make a variety of colors. More to come 🙂