Fiber Folio – A Yarn’s Life (part two)

February 27, 2007 at 10:48 am (Babylock Embellisher, Embellishing, Felting, Fiber Art, Fiber Folio, Fibers, Knitting, Quilting, Roving, Techniques, Yarns)

Taking another stencil, I repeated the previous process, only this time I turned the stencil diagonally to add a little visual interest to this simple design.

I wanted a different look for this piece, so I used the braiding technique that I posted in an earlier tutorial. Using two skeins of Neon Felt It, I tacked down the beginning edges of the yarn and then crossed the yarns every three stitches.

The colorful variegations combined with the curves of the design resulted in a piece that needed no added embellishment. That being said, I do think a little stippling or meandering inside the curves with a specialty thread might also be nice. If it were the surface of a quilt, I might add a different fabric inside each space delineated by the curves (and I would use a different fiber for the braiding, possibly silk).

With yarn to spare, I moved on to a completely different project. I had some needle felted flowers that I had made previously using the technique from Natural Blooms.

I set up the Babylock Embellisher with three needles. Next, starting in the center of the flower, I tacked down the edge of the yarn. Then I slowly moved in a spiral pattern, lightly felting the yarn to the flower.

For the petals, I simply looped the yarn and continued felting. When the flower was complete, I tucked the tail of the yarn under some previous felting and did a quick tack down.

Don’t these look like decorated sugar cookies? In the second flower, I skipped the spiral center, felted the petals, and then tacked down cut pieces of yarn. A little fluffing and my flower was finished.

This yarn was just too pretty to put away, so out came the needles and you know the rest of the story.

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N. Rene West
Time Treasured