New Products
One of the most popular new products in the store, Artfelt is quickly becoming our favorite felting method. This clever paper allows you to control your felting design as precisely as needle felting, yet get that amazingly smooth wet felt finish without the time and physical labor of either method. Artfelt paper was invented in Germany by Gerhard Schoppel, a name already familiar to many yarn lovers. He enjoyed felting with his daughter but wanted an easier method. Here’s how it works – You start by designing your felt. Whether it’s a pouch, coasters, scarf, or something totally different, the process begins when you lightly needle felt fibers onto the special Artfelt paper. Because the needle felting will not be the only thing holding the fibers together, there’s no need to spend a lot of time attaching firmly, a light tack will do. Once you are happy with your design, you wet the fibers and roll up the paper with a sheet of plastic to keep the layers from felting to each other. Using a couple rubber bands and a knee high stocking to secure the roll, the felt then gets tossed into any standard dryer. The agitation from tumbling in the dryer encourages the fibers to wet felt together, while the needle felting and paper hold everything in place so your design stays intact. When felting is complete, pouring boiling water over the project quickly dissolves the Artfelt paper, leaving you with a great piece of felt to use in all kinds of projects. Of course, that’s just the beginning. By layering your fibers differently you can encourage highly textural, ruffle effects. Playing with negative space in your design is a snap with Artfelt paper. Sewing the paper into a specially shaped base lets you create three dimensional projects. Even extremely detailed portraiture is possible because of the needle felting step. We can’t get enough of Artfelt, and we’re sure you’ll love it too! We have starter kits available if you just want to try it out, and we also sell large pieces of the paper for your own creative concepts.
Some of the fabrics we love are the Aboriginal prints from M&S Textiles. Each fabric is based on a painting done in the traditional style by talented Aboriginal artists. Typical Aboriginal art is characterized by the use of many small dots of color to form the pattern, reliance on familiar animal and wildlife motifs, and a utilization of a vibrant color palette. These artists, most of whom are women, have profiles and statements hanging in the store; be sure to ask to see them! We also have charts detailing the motifs used in the fabric, telling what they mean. If you just can’t get enough information and inspiration, we carry a whole book devoted to the meanings behind the fabric and amazing project ideas. Whether it’s an abstract design or something more literal (we love the turtles and platypuses!), we’re sure you’ll find a way to work these unusual fabrics into your projects. The fun prints are perfect for quilts, wall hangings, garments, and more.
One of our favorite yarns in the shop is our collection of Noro. Noro is made in Japan and is known world-wide for its striking colors. We thought you might be interested in learning more about the production of Noro yarns and the process that goes into designing the signature stripes. Eisaku Noro contemplated going to art school to become a painter, but instead he turned his amazing eye for color to yarns for both hand and machine knitting. Silk Road Textiles carries Kureyon, Silk Garden, Taiyo, Koromo, Kibou, Shiraito, Silk Garden Sock, and Taiyo Sock from the hand-knitting line. Noro is committed to leaving as much of the production hand-done as feasible. This is part of what makes Noro yarns so distinctive. The thick and thin effect is due to the hand picking of the fibers, the variation in stripe length is because no two people lay out the fiber in exactly the same way, and the knots that you sometimes find are because these prep techniques lend themselves better to shorter spinning runs. If you want to learn more, there is an interesting video (about 6 minutes long) produced by an English-speaking channel in Japan about Noro yarns. There is also an amazing book excerpt in PDF format available here. It details where all the fibers are sourced, what the special properties of each are, and it includes lots of pictures of the entire process. We have lots of samples made with Noro yarn in the store, and we are pleased to carry Noro pattern books and the new Noro Magazine. If you need inspiration or just want to see what it possible to be done with these amazing yarns, please stop in and ask us!
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