Nuno felting workshop

Always eager to learn from tips and techniques from different felters, I attended a weekend workshop recently with SooMee Kim from Melbourne.  It was held at Beautiful Silks, Fitzroy, Melbourne which in itself was a treat to see.  The selection of hand dyed silks and fibres was amazing.  I was the proverbial kid in a sweet shop with as little restraint in my purchases.  Only the size of my suitcase restricted me!

Anyway, the workshop - we all made wraps over the 2 days based on hand dyed merino prefelt which were reversible in their design.
These photos show my 'plainer' side that had less nuno felted silk and more loose roving and fibres than the other side.

I found that this prefelt only shrank by about 10% by the end, even though I continued to felt the piece once I got back to Sydney. This prefelt was made by wet felting and hand dyed too so that probably accounted for the low degree of shrinkage and the difficulty I had in firmly felting in thick fibres and silk despite sandwiching wool roving in between prefelt and fabric.  I tend to use prefelt that has been only needlefelted with more loft not wet felted and so this makes it a little easier.