Category: Dyeing

With various opportunities to sell and donate felted wraps and scarves this year, I had a go at techniques I have not tried before. Having dyed around 60 metres of Margilan silk gauze a while back, I had plenty to work with!

Doodle wraps?

Scribbling with wool over Margilan silk gauze creates a very lightweight nuno felt, which is most suitable for our mild winters and occasional cool evenings in summer. With wool laid on one side of aound 3 metres of silk gauze, each side has a different look.  The seemingly random  placement seems to fit well with the equally random patterning of the dyed silk.

Silk gauze – hand dyed

Closeup Doodle wrap

Closeup white on white

Doodle wrap silk and merino

Nuno doodle wrap white

Hand dyed silk gauze

Closeup doodle nuno

Green doodle wrap

Lightweight nuno felt

Bright but light

Irregular lines for a honeycomb effect

Using a double layer of silk gauze for the frills and covering one side completely with extra fine merino wool roving produces a more substantial wrap. The green one has a frill each side, which is a bit much for my taste. The red one had the frill on one side only, which enables a different look when worn.

Nuno felt wrap frill one side only

Red wrap worn opposite way

Green silk nuno wrap

Deep frills either side

Deconstructed nuno felt

The white scarf is made along the lines of my doubly deconstructed nuno wrap  .  The main difference is the silk gauze which I used on both sides giving it an overall sheen.

The asymmetrical blue wrap was made deconstructing a soy fibre and superfine merino prefelt  and applying it to cotton gauze. It produces  a noticeably heavier fabric than silk gauze. Originally white, it was dyed twice – first in an acid dye for the protein fibres, and then in fibre reactive dye for the cotton component.  Using slightly different shades of blue, seems to give in an interesting depth.

Deconstructed nuno

Closeup

Sublte texture

Silk both sides of wrap

White deconstructed nuno wrap

Closeup deconstructed nuno on cotton gauze

Asymmetrical wrap – merino and cotton, double dyed

A wrap made in a workshop was finally finished properly!

Silk and merino nuno flet texture

I learn something new  about wool fibres, layouts, shrinkage rates and edges with every wrap or scarf. Fortunately almost all sold at the Feltwest popup shop a few weeks ago or I would be buried in nuno felt!