Friday, April 10, 2009

BECOMING A STUDENT

Today 5 friends met for an 'enrichment' day.  Interestingly, 4 of us are professional instructors, and one shy friend is not.....but she's the one who led us through our creativity day.  I know Nancy Bruce wants to be anonymous.....but ooops....she's not now.  She's incredibly knowledgeable about how to dye every kind of fabric.


The first thing she shared was several pieces of rust dyed fabric.  She takes a variety of rusted metal objects and transfers their shapes, and their rust run off, onto material.  This photo in no way does justice to how rich and interesting this specific design was.

Nancy even utilizes a method to 'rust' non-metal objects.  This mask is plastic.....but using a variety of techniques, she made it appear, and even feel, like an antique metal treasure.


Our main goal for the gathering was to make Nuno felted scarves.  Here are some of the samples Nancy brought.

Nuno felting is a method of integrating wool fibers (usually dyed roving) into a woven fabric....such as gauze.  Other fibers such as thread snips or curly wool snippets can be trapped between these layers.  The 'design' is arranged in layers in a dry state, but are worked together with soap and water.....which basically 'fuses' together by rolling, rubbing, and slapping to create one piece of fabric. 

The resulting fabric features lots of texture and color.


With practice and skill, specific designs can be created.  So, after an introduction......we 4 students, guided by Nancy......began the process of making our own scarves.  It was A LOT more time consuming and work than I could imagine.  Follow our process in the next post.

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