Silk Work

Silk Work

  Adding surface designs in 

1.Remember if adding in a non natural fibre it will need to be surrounded with wool,so lay your wool down  then your material then more wool.

2,When I add a whole piece for the effect on a bag front 

I  part- felt this material first before surrounding it into the design .

3 Fibres to try with your merino or alone 

Tencel

Bamboo

Flax

Cotton

Nylon

Soya Bean

Ramie

If you add more non wool fibres to your mixture you will have overall less shrinkage and more work, I have pushed to 90% but boy was it hard work 

4 Use only cold water on Nuno-felt it increases your throwing time but you get proper Nuno -felt. Your fabric should be 40 to 50 % smaller on finishing from starting. You throw your felt in the last minutes of the process it shocks and locks the fibres in place, throwing also finishes the shrinking process so actually by the time you begin throwing you should have had at least 35% shrinkage in your piece.

THROWING

1. wrap your felt into a nice parcel from outside in, to protect your work
2. Make sure it is very wet but not soaking wet and throw downwards in to the sink
3. Throw 30 times then open  rewrap the opposite way and throw again.
4. Keep checking once the piece has the pebbly feel it is done.
5. So now straighten it out before it dries

Holes in felt

This is a popular design element and rather than using a grid,  holes are cut at the 70% stage when the fibres are holding together—cut in a straight line 50% smaller than you want it to be ,do your throwing and agitating but keep checking the holes. 

Roses 

Pieces of silk 3 by 3 placed in a stack and then gather together from the centre wrap this point in wool fibres only really really fine,now place face down on the plastic as part of the 1^stlayer ,make sure your wool fibres attach to this pointed end of your rose,

Pleats

Gather into a fan type fold and lay down on plastic again as 1^stlayer

Any smock type design do the same or gathered silk.

EXPERIMENT. 

I wet my plastic before laying down folded or crumpled silk on it,it helps to hold it and when I am doing the nuno design of double silk with wool in the middle layer it is important to work like this