Day 4- Fun Fur is Moderately Fun and Definitely Furry

2/27/14

I set out today to take the ugliest material I could found in my apartment and make it fashionable. Lucky for me, I found a fabulous ball of Fun Fur in a red-orange-purple combo. I believe the Fun Fur was given to me as a joke by my cousin several years ago.

In case you're not sure what Fun Fur is:

It's ugly. 

I started to crochet the yarn but after about 20 stitches got frustrated with how difficult it was to keep track of my stitches amongst the fur. I pulled out my loom and started to apply the yarn as the warp. I played with a few different ribbons in the weaving but rejected them all. Everything looked absurd. I realized there were only two ways to go: cover up the shameful Fun Fur or go totally crazy with it. I decided to make two very easy pouches today experimenting with both.


Because the yarn is 100% polyester, I was certain it would melt if ironed enough. So I ironed away at the yarn on the loom, and backed it with fusible. I put a few stitches in the end to keep it together long enough to get it off the loom and I cut the piece in half; one for each pouch.

Semi-melted Fun Fur, backed with interfacing

The subdued piece was going to be very simple. I wanted to cover the Fun Fur with chiffon or something that would be sheer but calm it down, but I found a great lace I purchased on a whim a few months ago. I'm not a huge fan of black lace over color because sometimes it comes off as tacky, but the nature of the project was tacky to I went for it anyway. Turns out the tacky canceled itself out. Fantastic.

For my wild piece I knew I wanted the Fun Fur to be exposed but I wanted to make sure the half melted remains didn't come apart during construction. I fell back on an old technique of mine: rows of stitching 1/3" apart. I used a heavyweight navy blue thread (Although in retrospect I might have benefited from a lighter color that blended better) and the back and forth stitching gave the texture a vague chevron effect. I thought the resulting piece looked like an Impressionist interpretation of Fun Fur.

1/3" Stitches

Wild vs. Mild

I chose a navy wool felt to border the Fun Fur and construct the pouch. I cut a rounded rectangle shape and inserted and stitched the Fur fabric in place. I played with some border ideas including beading, but decided to make use of some small crocheted flowers I'd been holding onto for a while.

Both of the pouches still require zippers (must go to the trim store next week!), and the Wild version is meant to fold over. I added more Fun Fur to the flowers because they needed some vibrancy and to blend in a bit better.
While I do think both end pieces are interesting and I enjoyed making the fabric, I think Fun Fur may be more trouble than its worth. Because it's not worth much.

Fun Fur fabric covered in black polyester lace 

Navy wool felt foldover pouch with Fun Fur insert and crocheted cotton flowers 

xo,
Arielle