My Braided Wool Chair Pad

There's just something wonderful about the feel of wool fibers.  Whether you braid with it, knit with it, or just gently run your fingers over it.  Of coarse I can't leave out the full hand squeeze, which I do all the time to determine the softness of a skein and whether or not it's appropriate for my next project.  I love the wool, but my friend Letty, she loves the sheep.  It truly seems to be her passion.  Her knowledge is endless, and it's so interesting listening to her talk about the different species, some of which she has on her farm.  I think her favorite is the Karakul, or maybe I just remember it because I think it's a cool name.

Letty Klein and her friend, Ann Brown, co-authored a book entitled The Shepherd's Rug. I have a copy of the first printing (signed, of coarse), and have read it from cover to cover. I also have seen some of the beautiful rugs that Letty has braided.  She will tell you that she does the braiding, but Ann does the sewing on most of their projects. Intrigued by the whole process I knew that I wanted to learn how to make these fabulous rugs, and I wanted to learn from Letty.  This spring, when the class schedule came out for the Michigan Fiber Festival I saw her class listed and without hesitation, signed up.

There were 21 people in the class that day.  A warm, but stormy day. Straight line winds were expected, but no one seemed to care, we were all on a mission to learn. We listened intently as Letty talked about roving.  Some of the roving that she brought with her that day was natural colors, colors that were the actual colors of the sheep that it came from.  Other roving had been dyed, generally from white fleeces.  One of the most exciting parts of the class was that you didn't need to spend a lot of money on tools and equipment, that was certainly a change from any other art form or craft I'd ever been involved with.  

I was amazed at the variety of roving that my classmates either brought or bought from Letty.  The combinations of colors were incredible.  I'll be sharing some with you in a moment.  The first thing we did was to tear strips of roving into manageable lengths, rolling up each color as we went.  The important thing was to keep your work off the floor, to keep it clean and from tangling.  Once that was done we began braiding.  A rubber band was used to securely hold 3 strands of roving together, we clamped this to the back of our chairs, and keeping our work taut, we began to braid.  We braided, and braided and braided.  Adding colors into our piece as we desired.  I struggled keeping the braid consistent in width, but that's probably because I was chatting with my neighbor and wandering around looking at every one's work. For the chair pad, our braids needed to be 8-10 yards long.  By 11:30 we stopped braiding, making sure that we tapered the last six inches or so.  Letty then took all our braids to the laundromat to be felted.  We all took a lunch break and just hung around waiting for Letty to return.  Once she arrived back with felted and dry braids, we began constructing our chair pad. 

She explained that starting out was probably the most difficult, getting that beginning end needle felted so it is rounded on the end, then getting that tight curl in the center of our chair pad.  It really wasn't too difficult, we were all happy about that.  So for the rest of the time we sewed, using a thick wax coated thread. And we sewed.  And we sewed.  And we sewed tightly so our works of art would not come apart! I left before I finished, but I was confident that I could finish at home.

So, here is my chair pad during the sewing process.  You can see the thick thread we used.  You'll also see a wooden skewer which we used to hide knots as we picked up more thread.  

  

Now it's time to share some pics of my classmates work in progress.  This first gal sat right beside me. 

If you're not familiar with what roving looks like, here's a picture of the roving that I used to make my chair pad. There were two shades of green, a salmon, and a charcoal.  It took approximately 1 lb. of roving to complete the chair pad.

There is Letty's book, off to the right side of the next picture.

I think my favorites are the chair pads using natural, un-dyed fiber like the one above.

This next picture is a peek at how awesome these braided creations are.  You really have to see them in person though.  You need to feel them.  The wool is incredibly soft, not scratchy at all.  These next two pictures are rugs that Letty made.

This next rug is mostly natural, with a hint of blue.

This is Letty!  What a great lady!

And I can't forget to show you my finished chair pad.  Isn't it awesome!!!

You just never know what you may see on my blog.  I'm a woman of many interests!

I do hope you enjoyed this little trip into the amazing world of fiber! 

Thanks for stopping by today!