color can wait

after attending last weeks workshop (see below) i realized it is good to improve my felting skills and concentrate on shape. color? color may come later. for now, all sorts of black and white will do. it is best to practice all the different felting methods and tricks without fighting at the color front. different wools, thickness, with nuno or without, adding silk fibers, curls, yarns, other materials … challenges enough for me. how to create very thin but lasting tissues, sturdy parts for a bag, scarves for summer, objects for the table or living room … there are so many adventures ahead.

white and black
this last week i made several parts just from black and white. did some small trial parts.

as i like to wear black and white it is a natural choice for me to start with. they are my favorite colors.

what comes next?

• i have to sew up several parts i made for bag
• make a strap for a second bag (that i made for myself)
• try out the wensleydale white fiber
• use the very fine white merino fleece i received a couple of weeks ago.
• order new white and black merino wool

new ubuntu version installed

i did it: my notebook suffered from a very ancient ubuntu installation. today i installed the latest one. no, i did not upgrade.
now i hope not to struggle with crashing firefox anymore. during the last two weeks it was no fun to surf or blog. it was awful. but, finally today, i did it. now everything works as it should, i am so glad.

dienstagsfrage

es fragt das wollschaf:

Liebes Wollschaf,
gibt es eigentlich schon Garne aus China in Europa zu kaufen? Ich kam auf diese Frage, weil wir doch überall mit Billigprodukten aus China zugeballert werden. Nur Wolle habe ich - dem Himmel sei dank - noch nicht gesehen. Frage an die Handarbeitsluder: würde ihr Chinagarne verarbeiten, wenn sie günstiger wären als heimische oder sonstige Qualitätsgarne?
Herzlichen Dank an Sockentrolli für die heutige Frage!


meine antwort:

wer weiss schon immer so genau, woher das garn kommt? der wollladen bei mir um die ecke achtet sehr auf die herkunft. dafür gibt es dort aber auch nur eine eingeschränkte palette an garnen. hätte ich jetzt ein kleines kind, ich würde darauf sicher ganz besonders darauf achten. es ist aber lange her, dass meine tochter klein war und anstandslos handgemachte jacken und pullis getragen hat.

gerade mit dieser saison bringen einige der einschlägigen garnhersteller ökogarne auf den markt (lana grossa, rico). in zukunft wird bestimmt mehr auf die herkunft, anbaumethode, verarbeitung und färbung geachtet. sicher wird auch china in der zukunft ökologisch nachhaltig herstellen können. auch wenn das heute nicht so unbedingt danach aussieht. was bedeutet denn auch „made in germany“, „made in italy“, „made in china“? woher kommen die schafe oder die rohbaumwolle, wo wird geschoren, die wolle gewaschen, gefärbt, gesponnen,gewickelt, banderole aufgesteckt, verpackt … jeder einzelne schritt kann in einem anderen land erfolgen.

mein fazit: für kinder-produkte sowieso, und auch sonst, z.b. für den verkauf von handgemachten sachen ist es zunehmend ratsam, auf ökologische herkunft zu achten.

felting workshop

last sunday i attended a felting workshop at bodenheim, near mainz. my intention was to see how others felt and to be improve my self-taught felting procedure. the title of the day was: experimental felting. so early in the morning i went to filz und farbe
so what did i learn?

• color is important. the owner of the store sells skeins of wool and silk she paints herself. the colors are gorgeous. during the creative process of laying out the wool and felting, fulling, shrinking of the fibers wonderful color effects develop. i’d like to throw all my single colored wools away, except for the white and black and a small amount of mustard colored fine merino.
• my experience so far is not bad. i already tried out a lot of things. but now i learned to recognize an object to be finished or not. to stop fulling too early is no more necessary
• felting needs very few things, very inexpensive equipment,only luke water and a fluid soap i know from my childhood. nevertheless i prefer to use beautiful equipment. or the nice smelling lavender soap.
• i should buy those luxury felting mats, 25 euro one piece – i need three. for the moment my car mats do their job.
• thin is beautiful. using 2 layers of beautifully colored fine merino wool creates a very fine felt garment.
• there is no need to be afraid of silk / merino blend
• there a a million possibilities to create unboring objects, resists can be helpful
• nuno can be made with many many different things. silk is the best, lace fabric is great, too.
• plant colored (natural dye) wool is not for wetfelting. although i doubt this, i will throw away my small amounts of those fibers, they are not so smooth.
• i should always use an even number of wool-layers. 2, 4, 6, … i doubt this, too.
• attending a felting workshop can be much fun!
• once again: color is important

so i learned a lot that day. here some of my felted objects (we cut most of the FOs to take them home to remember all the things we tried):

and here what the other participants created:

at the end of the workshop i had to hurry to catch my train. but i could manage to by the white-gray silk-wool mix (see above) and some green wensleydale wool.
i strongly recommend this workshop! besides, visiting the „filz und farbe“ – shop is a good idea, too!

great silk fiber

my very first felting experience was a flower which included a small amout of silk fiber.

when i once tried to repeat this i failed. i don’t know why. last week a received some white silk fiber.

beautiful. this week i gave it a new try and made a scarf with silk details. only when it was totally dry, the bright white of the silk developed:

it was easy and fun and the scarf is so nice!

crochet hooks collection in concrete

some of my crochet hooks found their place in a lovely concrete pencil holder:

crochet hook holder

what is missing? my several tunisian crochet hooks and some hooks that are stored with their „work in progess“.

misc.

today arrived my 2 gb ram. i should have ordered this years before. because now my notebook simply does work.

in spite of today heavy rain i brought a preview of springtime into my livingroom:

die verstrickte dienstagsfrage 07/2009

es fragt das wollschaf:

Welche Muster kommen nach deinem Geschmack für Herrensocken in Frage? Darf es da auch mal ein Lochmuster sein?

zuletzt habe ich vor 20 jahren socken gestrickt. kann mir nicht vorstellen, es jemals wieder zu tun. hab also bisher über männersocken nicht weiters nachgedacht. ganz allgemein gefällt mir, dass männer mode-mutiger werden. warum nicht auch bei den socken?!? aber in der frage geht es ja um meinen geschmack für herrensocken: schwarz schwarz schwarz! da kann ruhig mal eine grassgrüne häkelbordüre oder einem üppigen zopfmuster dabei sein!

wordle me

ibm seems to wonder why people use wordle, you can take a survey to enlighten this question.

new nuno works

as i announced last week i made two more nuno scarves. one is a black and white scarf:

and the next is yellow-orange-red on a black base, which i like very much: