Don't Try this at Home

I have lots and lots of Hand Dyed Tapestry Wool. There was a time when I thought that I should bow to my customers demands and produce hand dyed wool. I didn't really enjoy mucking around with wool. Its probably more to do with the fact that I don't personally use it than any other reason. Anyway back to the fact that I have this mountain. I decided that to use it up I would start braiding with it. Our holiday to Melbourne semed as good a time as any. Afterall I would need something to do on the plane.

I spent a lot of time choosing colours( NOT!). I really didn't leave myself a lot of planning time for this. I grabbed the first colours that didn't scream at each other.

This is the starting postion for the 20 strand Flat Braid. I started with 4m of wool on each.



From Left to Right: Colour 1, Colour 1, Colour 2, Colour 2, Colour 3, Colour 4, Colour 5, Colour 1

Repeated on the bottom line.

This is how the braid looked. It was a little over 3 metres long. Of course I wasn't happy to leave it here. As I was experimenting I decided to see what would happen to the braid if I felted it. This is where it starts to get ugly.

The braid would not felt, it just got fluffy in odd places. I didn't trim the left over wool before felting. It looks like dreadlocks.

Now all is not lost. I did learn that the wool braids beautifully. It should sew well together edge to edge. The felting......