Nuno Felting Question

[Deleted]

Hello everyone,

I am back from our 4 days at the Michigan Fiber Festival. I never thought in a million years an all day class from 0900 until 4 PM could be so very exhausting. Smile. Especially two of them in a row.  Every muscle in my body ached big time.  Laughing out loud. In learned a lot. feltingandfiberstudio.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/gsxhvtvwxpalvd9ugzb7.jpg
feltingandfiberstudio.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/cg5jlkc_8rgocbrstaja.jpg


 Questions:   The Nuno Felted Wrap was very large. 7 foot by 4 foot.  After I did 200 rolls from one and then the other end when we went to flip it over to rub the back side one loop area wool had NOT migrated thru and came off the silk.  Very sad face.  The teacher way of fixing it was to lay it back Down and add more soap and row it back up and felt it again another 200 times.  Which in the end did not work.  Extremely sad face.  I thought maybe I should of cut the part that did not stick to the silk and add new dry wool and then felt it again. So in the end my Nuno Wrap was the ONLY one which did not turn out lovely and perfect. 

How to fix it now???  The teacher did give me some of the black wool and she then told me to wrap the part that did not fix to the silk with the new dry wool and needle felt into the silk???  Of course this would put holes into the silk. 


After much thinking about it I thought maybe I should cut out the part that did not stick and add the new wool and wet felted it again in that small section.  Photos below. I hand dyed the silk ( my first dying attempt)  I used Lilac, turquoise and Gun Metal.  Colors of the Sea. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[halay]

Once I had a similar problem, but I was working with polyester which is more tricky than silk (even though I need to note that I have a thin silk scarf which won't let the fibres pass through at all!).
What I did in my case was I took some new wool and needle felted it on that part and then wet felted it. You don't need to punch the whole silk area too densely and ruin the silk. I don't know how large your problem are is. I'm sure you will find a solution and other girls will come up with other suggestions too. I understand your frustration. I had a bad felting day too.

[koffipot]

Your hand dyed silk is gorgeous - how very disappointing this is for you. It's difficult to tell from photos, but the black roving looks quite thick for nuno.

Nada's solution may well work. Failing that you might be able to pull the loose wool off and add the new.

I'm sure that someone here will have the right solution. Good luck!

[luvswool and dyestuff]

Ah, Judy, I had the same problem the first time I did nuno-felting. Then I got a lot of tips from the kind members of the Forum. Later, when I retried the project I did a guest post on the Studio blog, showing my results. I started fresh that time, but later I grabbed the original nuno felt scarf, pulled off the loose fibers, and re-wetted with new fluffy wool roving and a few embellishments like mohair. I used the roving on BOTH sides of the silk, which increased my chances of success.

Don’t be discouraged! Just try it again, but I suggest reading the many tips on the Forum and Studio Blog first.

[Pandagirl]

It sounds as if the silk was a dense fabric. The dye job is beautiful, by the way. I would try rewetting the entire thing with tepid very soapy water laid on top of some bubble wrap, place another piece of bubble wrap that has been soaped not wet, just run the bar over it, then wet the top of the bubble wrap and using your hands on too if the bubble wrap, bubbles down, rework each area checking frequently to see if it is migrating. Once it starts catching I'd re roll it in each direction, both sides. I take it you didn't get to the stage of wetting and throwing. Once the wool has started to fully migrate you can try throwing it in the sink to get more shrinkage. I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have more questions. Good luck!

Sometimes it just takes patience and time. If you've worked it about two hours. Let it rest until the next day. I had a project using a tightly woven cotton muslin like fabric and it took me about a week to get it the size I wanted.

Judith is right, if the wool is too coarse and fabric too tightly woven you've got a double whammy against you.

[MTRuth]

By this time, it sounds like the wool that isn't migrating has already felted to itself and it will be hard to get it to do anything more at this point. It does look like the wool is really thick for nuno felting. I have found that when you first start out with nuno felting, thinner layers of wool are easier.

When I am doing nuno and an area isn't migrating, I turn the piece over and rub gently from the silk side to help the wool work through. You can also use a hand sander to do this as well. (You can see my tutorial for this on the Felting and Fiber Studio blog).

What kind of silk was it? What was the mommes? What was the wool used?

By the way - your hand dyed silk is beautiful.

[Shepherdess]

I like to do rubbing on the silk side first then roll. one way to flip it with out disturbing in it is to roll it up and then turn the roll over and unroll from underneath rather than the top. your piece is the other way up and no movement.

In this case I would remove the part that didn't felt and add new wool. Just wet that part. No need to wet the whole thing. Rub on the silk side gently you are trying to "pull" the fibers through. The sander is ideal for this.

[zed]

I was going to say something similar to Ruth and Ann. The wool is probably felted now so there are no loose fibres to push through the silk and grip it.

I'd remove the felted wool and add new wool, too.

Do you have hand carders, or something to rough/fluff up the felted part? If you leave an inch or so of the felted wool at each end, rough it up so it is thin/wispy, then lay that over the new wool, hopefully it would felt down.
Does that make sense?

[Deleted]

Yes, Zed that makes sense to ruff the end you lay down the new fiber on. I do not have a carder but I will think of something to use. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Deleted]

Hello Everyone, thanks for all the suggestions and nice comments on my first dying attempt. Greatly greatly Appreciated.

The 2 classes were both very long and tiring days so I will give myself a rest before attempting to fix the wrap.

(1). The silk that the teacher gave us was Habotai Silk 5 mm.. The wool I know was Not Finn that we used in our purse class because I asked but I know it was very coarse wool. I did not like it , it was not soft at all.
(2). Marilyn I am a very Pink person but for these 2 classes I decided to spread my wings and used the colors of the Sea. I loved your Pink Scarf and your tutorial was excellent.
(3). There was 6 ladies in our class and 2 helpers. I did full/ throw the nuno wraps over 200 times. I threw it very hard Because of the frustration of my wrap was the only one that fell apart. Smile..........
(4). I do believe I laid out the fiber to thick but as a student if the teacher saw this she should of told me it was to thick and I would of made them thinner. Definitely a LESSON learned. (
(5) Ruth your Nuno Felted tutorial was excellent too. I like seeing photo they help allot when you are learning. I plan to print it out and read it over and over again before trying to fix my nuno wrap.

I doubt if I will ever use the wrap I am more of a scarf person but I took the class to "Really Learn" nuno felting. I think I have learned more here in the forum than I did in the class. I also took a nuno class down in Kenucky and my Pink scarf I was very please with even though it turn out pretty small. I was surprised how much it shrank.


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