Lewis and Rachel went home this morning, and took Ozzy with them, but I thought I should add a picture of him for posterity. He looks a bit like a miniature dinosaur in this photo. He has been fun to have around, very fond of sitting on people's heads and making a dash for the back of the sofa.
So things calmed down a bit after they left (they had spent the morning playing Rock Band on the Xbox) and we finished off the birthday cake for breakfast. Yesterday a nice little piece of fabric arrived, it is pink/blue shot chiffon, so I wanted to do another nuno experiment. I laid it out, damped it, wrapped it up in bubble wrap and rolled it for half an hour and the fibres did seem to be bonding with the fabric, but then when I did the 'shocking' things took a wrong turn. Basically the fibres were more keen on bonding with each other than with the fabric. It could be that I did not put enough roving on it. It is bonded with the fabric but only just. What I have ended up with is a kind of cobwebby effect very fine over the surface of the chiffon (click the photo and you can see it more clearly) but the fibres have not gathered the fabric at all except around the edge and even there they are only very loosely connected and it just looks a bit tatty.
So I hope it is a case of learning something from my experiments. I may try using more roving and rolling for much longer to see if I can get a better effect. Or maybe buy some real silk. Just as an aside, if you have a piece of fabric and do not know what it is made of, take a small piece and put a lit match to it, if it burns to ash then it is a natural fibre like cotton or silk, but if it melts and forms little lumps of plastic then it is man-made fibre.
So I hope it is a case of learning something from my experiments. I may try using more roving and rolling for much longer to see if I can get a better effect. Or maybe buy some real silk. Just as an aside, if you have a piece of fabric and do not know what it is made of, take a small piece and put a lit match to it, if it burns to ash then it is a natural fibre like cotton or silk, but if it melts and forms little lumps of plastic then it is man-made fibre.