Creating Curtain Panels

OK, this is diverging from my pet projects (I know, boooo), but you can expect this detour from time to time as my restless imagination wanders off into Unfocused World. Actually, I have completed several projects for business and pleasure. Here, I created a large curtain panel for my bedroom made out of Wensleydale fleece. I really love felting with Wensleydale as you get an amazing texture from the locks. The top red part is Mohair that has a curl of its own, but seems to adapt well to the exaggerated serpentine pattern of the Wensleydale underneath.

Basically, the technique involves a very large sheet of the Artfelt paper. I used an 80 sq. inch sheet (spliced to get the width in one direction) of the paper for a 4' sq. window (with a 33% shrinkage rate) and applied 2 very thin layers of Wensleydale fleece - one layer carded and applied horizontally and the top layer of the locks slightly picked apart and applied vertically.

I crawled around on the floor for 3 days the wool to the paper. It only took around 12 oz. of fiber. To set up for felting, I took it out to my driveway, placed face down on a large sheet of 2mm plastic and wet it down using a garden sprayer filled with water. I used foam pipe insulators to roll it up on and 10 feet of a fabric silt sock (the ones you use for 4" French drain pipes) to hold it. Of course, the wind always picks up when you lay out a large plastic sheet. However, if you get some dirt on the paper side, it will wash down the drain when dissolved. After I rolled it up and contained it, I flopped the log over my car in order to drain the excess water.

It flopped around curled up with 2 pair of tennis shoes added in the dryer for an hour and then another 15 minutes unrolled on it's own. It took 5 large pots of boiling water to get all the paper dissolved, doing the red part last to avoid the dye bleeding too much. I then ironed it and blocked it somewhat. I needle-felted fleece to patch any holes that might have occurred that looked bad. After it dried, I hung it on the rod using those curtain rings with the clips.

My next large project like this will be to create a set of curtains for my guest room using combed Merino roving from Skacel. These curtains should be easier (hah!) as the width is halved, so I won't need to wrestle with it so much. I'll still be crawling around on the floor though. They'll be a forest green to olive color.

My friend, Nancy, loved the idea so much that I helped her create 18" x 72" valances for her fiber room using the same method. They turned out great! I hope to teach a class on creating, perhaps a cafe curtain.