Nuno Nuno

Most of you are probably too young to remember Mork and Mindy so you might not have picked up on the Nanoo Nanoo reference of today's post title.  But it made me chuckle.  Mork, a rather friendly alien was played by Robin Williams - Nanoo Nanoo was his greeting.  In those days, these was less dark and more hilarity to his characterizations.  Some might say he was shallow, but I liked him better that way.  I mean, one of my all time favorite movies is Weekend at Bernie's, so there you go.

Anyway, I wanted to show you my first attempt at nuno felting.  The first photo is the front, and the second is the back.  I read a bunch of instructions online, and then went about buying the wrong things.  The instructions I found all said use merino.  I have lots of bits of fun colors of roving and batts that once had breeds attached to them and even more of uncertain lineage.  And some pretty wild mohair locks.  I used what I had.  Then, I couldn't for the life of me figure out exactly what was meant by "felting net".  I found called exactly that for $8 + shipping, but what fun is that?  Then I read a couple of British sites where the women said they used curtain netting.  Aha, I know what that stuff is - sheers!  So that's what I bought.  It worked, so technically I guess it wasn't the wrong thing.          

Next was the backing.  Everyone, except Quilting Arts Magazine recommends silk gauze or chiffon.  Right.  Go ahead and find it.  Dharma Trading has some in white, which means I'd have to dye it.  I was looking for instant gratification and besides, in the latest issue of Quilting Arts, they used a rustic cotton gauze to fabulous effect.  Joanne's had just the ticket in a couple of plain colors including a lovely pea/lime green I just might go back for and the multihued one I bought.  I had plenty of bubble wrap for shipping HMH, but it was only 12 inches wide.  Oh well, I guess I just have to make something small. 

Once home with my fabric, however, I discovered that some of the designs had been painted on and felt rubbery.  In an attempt to soften it up a bit and perhaps open the weave, I put it through six loads of wash, the last with jeans and work pants - heavy duty abuse.  That helped quite a bit and my fabric came out quite a bit softer, though still not as light as I'd have liked. 

Placing the roving was the best part.  I had drifts of wool all over the bed - it looked like an explosion!  Then came the felting part.  Now I see why more people don't do this.  It's wet, messy and takes forever,  Thank the powers that be that I can call Anthony to drop his work and come on over to lend muscle to the endless process of rolling the bubble wrapped bundle.  It was taking forever.  So I decided to unwrap it and put it through a hot/cold water shock.  THAT worked wonders.  No-one had mentioned that, so I suppose it's wrong, but it worked.  Even so, Anthony bailed when he decided he liked how it looked and I was on my own until I liked how it looked.  The whole thing took about two hours, start to finish.   

The finished size id 9 x 17 and it looks much better in person.  I probably shouldn't have taken the photos in the sun. 

Next time, I'll try and find a lighter weight cotton gauze. I like the rustic feel the cotton lends to the finished piece.  I really would have liked to see the more of the fabric through the felt.  I think combining a lighter weight cotton and longer felting time, to allow the felt to pull together more and expose more fabric should do it.  But first I need to lift some weights.  Nuno is hard work.   

    

Comments

[Stephanie from Va Bch]

Hello...always impressed with your work, I came back to refer to this post because I really want to try my hand at this Nuno...any good links with easy directions or tricks of the trade? Also, I can't find any roving locally and I was trying to avoid ordering online, do you know of any other method I could try or use? Maybe I just need to get more creative! Anywho..I bow down to your talent!