Nuno felting is a way of felting wool fleece into fabric to create a new, bonded fabric. Amazingly, during the felting process wool fibres will not only grab each other to create felt, they’ll also grab whatever’s next to them. So if you lay an openweave or natural fabric like cotton muslin or silk onto the fleece, the wool fibres will penetrate it. As the felt starts to compact and shrink, it takes the fabric with it. But of course, as the fabric itself can’t shrink, what happens is that it ruches and puckers to create wonderful texture and pattern. So Nuno felting is another technique in a felter’s armoury to help create unique designs.
Last Sunday at Devon Pop Ups‘ Bideford Vintage and Handmade Event I ran a workshop on behalf of Make at Monteray for a group of ladies to create Nuno felted flower corsages. I mentioned big resists in my last post, and this time we used very thin packaging foam resists to create layers for our flowers (ie to stop them felting together), and recycled sari silk to create our patterns and textures. A pretty raucous time was had by all (I’m pleased to say!) and everyone created a beautiful Nuno felted flower corsage by the end. Here are the results, topped off with a crystal button and a brooch pin on the back – well done all!
