Eco Printed Nuno Felted Poncho

My beautiful sister-in-law Nancy, who's a big supporter of my craft, is modeling one of my eco printed nuno felted seamless ponchos. 

 I hand made and wet felted this poncho using wool roving and silk gauze; it is seamless and has no sewing involved.   Afterwards I bundled it and eco dyed it with eucalyptus leaves.  It would be a stylish yet functional piece to wear on a cool summer's evening.  

If you are interested in purchasing this piece or something similar, please contact me HERE.

BTW - To make the animated GIF below, I put all the images into Photoshop by doing the following: File, Scripts, Load Files into Stacks, Click OK, Go to Window, Animation.  

Eco Printed Alabama Chanin dress

Here's the dress before it was eco printed.  Click HERE to see how it was made.

I really love the results of eco printed the dress with eucalyptus leaves.

 Here's the dress all bundled up with leaves and tied with cotton string.

My work space.

 I placed the leaves and folded it so I'd get a mirror image on the back.

Close up of the dress.

Eco Printed and Nuno Felted Seamless Vest

I created this nuno felted vest with fine merino roving and silk fabric.  It is totally seamless and no sewing was involved at all.  Once it was finished I bundle wrapped it with eucalyptus leaves and cooked it in a pot full more eucalyptus leaves and onion skins.  Looks great with a simple brown tee shirt. 

 The collar came out a luscious shade of dark brown which totally matches that of the tee shirt.  The prints of the eucalyptus range from subtle oranges to grays to browns.  This vest is luxuriously earthy and eco friendly.

 Close ups of all the textured silk fabric.

 Presto changeo..turn everything upside down and you have a completely different look.  Now the long vest is a little bolero  fastened with a vintage leaf pin. 

 When you wear it upside down, the collar is now the bottom of the back side of the bolero.  

Making a Seamless Nuno Felted Jacket

Making a nuno felted jacket is not for the faint of heart but boy is it ever rewarding. 

This jacket has no seams at all and involved absolutely no sewing. 

I created a template for the jacket calculating a shrinkage factor of 50%.  In the final analysis, I would have used less of a shrinkage factor since I really had to work to get the felt to shrink so much especially in the length.  Next time, I would add a few more inches to the width since I forgot to add in ease but would definitely cut down on the length of the sleeves and the body.

 I laid bubble wrap on the table, bubbles up and then laid painter's plastic on top.

 I laid wool roving on the back of the resist extending it over the edges.  

  I laid silk fabric on top of the roving and wetted out the whole thing with my "watering can" made by drilling holes in the top of a plastic jar.

 I flipped the whole package and placed merino roving and silk fabric one the right front side and wetted it out.  I then added a second template and completed the left front side of the front in the same way. Lastly I did both sleeves.

 Rock and roll. 

When the felt adhered to the silk fabric, I cut the bottom edge of the jacket open and removed the template. Hey, Tucker get off of that couch!!

I then cut the sleeves open.

More rolling and then slamming it.

 

It's getting there.

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A night on the town wearing my new jacket and top which I also nuno felted and then eco printed with eucalyptus. 

Happening in Hollywood

I am so excited about next week's event which is the launch party for our newly formed arts collective which will feature the hand made creations from us nine founding members.  I will be featuring my felted work, my eco dyed scarves and metal smithed jewelry.  There's going to be a silent auction, an awesome raffle for a basket of our creations valued in excess of $1,000.  Plus artisan food and wine and a DJ - the whole nine yards.  Hope to see some of you there.

I'd love it, if you'd LIKE us on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/CrossroadsArtsCollective