Friday, March 9, 2012

Nuno Felting with Habotai Silk

Design and handcrafted by Kim Buchheit
I bought some 5mm Habotai silk last week and did some experimenting with mixed results (see sample above). While I love the fabric itself, it takes much more effort to coax the wool fibers into this weight of Habotai silk than into silk chiffon, for example. In some areas you may notice that the fibers did not migrate into the silk at all, but rather felted to themselves on the surface. Now, that said, I am not giving up on this lovely silk — it has a beautiful sheen and feels so luxurious. In my next attempt, I plan on using a hand-sander for the early cool-water stage, and will post results with comments on that soon. If you're looking for a fool-proof silk to use in nuno felting, I recommend using 8mm silk chiffon. Also, I've used very-open weave 100% cotton gauze (or cheesecloth) with great results.