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The Dodo Blog

How To Design A Resist For A Bag – The Q&A Sessions

Jan 31, 2018
 

Welcome to the first episode of my new Q&A series.

If you still have trouble finding the right way to make a resist for a 3D wet felted object, this episode is for you.

Today’s question is from Kathryn, from Walla Walla, in Washington state.

And Kathryn writes:

 

“I am trying to make a wet felted case for my son’s new MacBook Pro computer. I viewed your template making video for the clutch bag – thinking I could use that for my effort.

I made the template and started to lay out the wool and realized that I didn’t know why I needed the top resist.

You have a resist that has a top and bottom, when I thought I only needed the bottom to cover with wool, so that I could make the pocket.

If I don’t intend the top to have a pocket, why do I need the top part of the template?

I ended up cutting the template in half and placing the top part under the bubble wrap to serve as a guide, as I wanted the top to cover the bottom of the bag as I see on your photo.

Can you help me underst...

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I’ll Be Back In January

Nov 30, 2017

If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know I’ve been planning to move to a new apartment for some time.

Well, the time has come. I’m packing, and I’ll be moving in a couple of weeks. With the Holiday Season approaching, you might say I haven’t chosen the best time of the year 😊 But, that’s the way things go sometimes. Not everything in life goes according to plan. In fact, it rarely does.

This means blogging will be difficult and filming probably impossible. So, I wanted to let you know that I won’t be posting during December and maybe even in the first January weeks.

But I promise to be back ASAP, with new free videos and workshops. If you have something about wet felting you’d like me to answer or explain, just write me an email and let me know what it is. As always, I’m open to suggestions.

On my list for the new year are some new baby items and a workshop on slippers, because some of you expressed that wish.

For the meantime, I wish you a wonderful Holiday Season and a gr...

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Last day of Etsy’s Ciber Week Sales

Nov 30, 2017

Today’s the last day of Etsy’s Ciber Week Sale. This is the last chance to get original, handmade Christmas presents for a great price, while supporting Etsy sellers at the same time!

And Going The Dodo Way has a discount of up to 50% on all tutorials and workshops.

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Holiday Season Sale!

Nov 20, 2017

Just a quick post to let you know that Going The Dodo Way has joined the ETSY HOLIDAY SEASON SALE.

From today until December 1, you can get any workshop for a sales price of up to 50%.

Enjoy!

 

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How To Repair A Felted Bag With A Worn-Out Pattern

Nov 16, 2017
 

If you’ve been felting for some time, and you also use the pieces you felt, I’m sure you’ve already had this problem.

No matter how carefully you lay your wool or how resistant your piece has been felted, if you’re using it often, sooner or later its surface will be worn-out. And this is even more obvious if the piece has a pattern.

That’s normal. It’s just the way wool is.

That’s exactly what happened to this bag, that I’ve been using on a daily basis for the last 2 years.

But it’s a bag I really enjoy, so I decided to repair it. Now, as you know, it’s extremely difficult to make new fiber attach to the wool that’s already been densely felted.

Still, there is a solution, and that’s what I’ll be showing you in this video.

Hope you enjoy it!

P.S.: Do you have other ideas on how to repair felt? If so, you’re welcome to share them in the comments below.

 

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New Online Video Workshop – How To Wet Felt Play Fruit

Oct 31, 2017
 

I’ve been working on this online course for some time, and I’m happy to announce, it is now available in my Etsy shop.

If you’re familiar with my workshops, you’ll find this one very different from the ones I’ve created before. Instead of teaching you how to make a particular piece, my goal here is to talk about one theme – in this case, play fruit – in a very comprehensive way.

The idea is to enable you to create other similar pieces, based on what you learn here. So, more than a workshop, this is a course for beginners.

That’s why I’ve also added a bonus PDF, that’ll give you the chance to learn some of the basics, if you’re entirely new to felting.

What’s included in the course?

  1. Introduction (1 video)
  2. Materials And Equipment (1 PDF)
  3. Making The Pre-Felts (1 video)
  4. Using Wool Leftovers To Fill New Felt Pieces (1 video)
  5. Oranges, mandarins and lemons (3 videos)
  6. Peaches and plums (3 videos)
  7. Strawberries, cherries, blackberries and mulberries (4 videos)
  8. Apples and pears (3 v
  9. ...
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How To Recycle Felted Wool To Fill New Pieces

Oct 18, 2017
 

Today I’ve got a short video for you.

It’s on a subject that I haven’t heard anyone talk about yet: recycling felted wool rests.

It might not seem very important to you, if you’re just starting out with felting. But if it’s something you do on a regular basis, I bet you’ve already asked yourself what you should do with all those bits and pieces that you got from cutting parts off your projects or from items that just didn’t turn out the way you expected.

To me this is really something important. I work with high quality wool (with the certifications Öko-Tex® Standard 100 and Global Organic Textile Standard), so it would never cross my mind to throw away any rests. I keep every little bit, even the pieces my students don’t want to save, when I’m teaching live workshops ? This means I ended up with bags full of all shapes and colors, and I really wanted to do something with them.

When I started filming my latest felting workshop, I decided it was time to reuse all this wool I had. An...

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Sea Silk – A Craft On The Verge Of Extinction

Oct 04, 2017

A couple of days ago I bumped into a short video, while browsing the internet. I was awed by what I saw and I was left wondering how I had never heard about this before.

After that, I went searching, and here is some of what I’ve discovered.

“[This] ancient thread, known as byssus, […] is mentioned on the Rosetta stone and said to have been found in the tombs of pharaohs.

[…] It was the finest fabric known to ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, and one of its remarkable properties is the way it shines when exposed to the sun, once it has been treated with lemon juice and spices.

[…] The raw material comes from the glistening aquamarine waters that surround the island. Every spring [Chiara] Vigo goes diving to cut the solidified saliva of a large clam, known in Latin as Pinna Nobilis.

She does it early in the morning, to avoid attracting too much attention, and is accompanied by members of the Italian coastguard – this is a protected species. It takes 300 or 400 dives to gather 200g

...
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10 Ideas For Nuno Felting Exercises

Sep 27, 2017

Last week I did a short introduction to nuno felting, on how to choose the right materials and a couple of other tips to help you start experimenting with the technique.

Today, I’d like to show you some examples of samples I made before I decided to felt a bigger piece, what materials I chose for them and what went right/wrong.

I’d like to start with the samples where the wool covered the whole fabric surface, just because I find it an easier way to start than just applying stripes, dots or any kind of other motives on the fabric, since the smaller the area that the wool covers, the more difficult it is to make it attach properly to the woven surface.

Sample 1 – This is probably the easiest of them all to get good results. I used an extra-fine green merino and a white cheese cloth for this. Since this type of cloth has a very open weave, the fine merino fibers have no problem attaching to it. I find it produces a very interesting surface, that could look great on a piece of clothing...

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My Tips To Get It Right With Nuno Felting

Sep 20, 2017

I often get questions about nuno felting, so I’d like to share a couple of tips to help you start experimenting, and to get the feeling for it, especially if it’s something entirely new for you.

Nuno felting is a very recent felting method, and it was developed when designers rediscovered felting, and started playing with new ways to use this old textile technique. It was developed by Polly Stirling in the 90s, when she combined the traditional wet felting with light fabrics, like silk for example. In her own words:

‘In 1990 I became entranced by the myriad of transformations of the rich and ancient textile called felt. I spent most of the ensuing decade seeing what new forms could evolve, as appropriate for the subtropics of Australia where I had lived for nearly 20 years. The techniques I developed for making lightweight felts soon led to experiments combining other materials, and in 1994 my assistant Sachiko Kotaka and I developed the technique we termed “Nuno Felt.” [From the J...

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