Finished Wet Felted Handbag

     I had some doubts about this design, but it actually worked better than I expected. The lobster is rather cute, if I do say so myself, even though it's pretty much anatomically correct. There is even a difference between the pincher and the crusher claws. I really had to do quite a bit of hand rubbing through the mesh in order to secure all the parts of the prefelt design, but eventually it stuck enough that I felt it would stay in place while rolling it. I'm pleased with the result but I doubt I'll make another unless it's a commission. It's just too fiddly and I still had to do some needle felting of finer details at the end. 


     I did a good job felting this one. The felt is very firm and tough. One thing about these bags is that they are durable. I also noticed that water will pool on the surface of a dried bag. That's just cool. 

     This is probably the last of the new stuff before the big Canada Day Boardwalk Artists event. I mailed my entry fee in the other day and hope to get confirmation this week. My plans for this coming week include a large round felt to cover the top of my ratty old ottoman. I'd love to just chuck it in the garbage, but my husband brought it home from Cyprus and it's so comfortable to sit on that I suppose I can't get rid of it. It needs to be covered though, so that will be this week's project. I saw a picture taken by Andrea Graham of the work of one of her students that inspires me to try to replicate a very stormy sky, so that will be the theme of the felt. I will also give me a chance to use some of the new curly locks I bought. The kind people at Gaspereau Valley Fibers gave me a free package of white locks because they didn't feel the quality was up to par. They're wonderful to do business with and I can get the Louet fiber through them, quickly and at a better price than ordering directly from Louet, thanks to the drop shipping feature. I think the yellowed tips will look great in a moody sky scene. Wish me luck, because I really have no idea how to put them on the felt ..  this is going to be an experiment as well. I think my felting needles will be coming into play again very soon. 

Catching Up

     It's been quite awhile since I wrote anything in here, so today I'm going to try to catch up on some computer stuff. Last weekend I had a friend staying with me, which was an amazingly good time. We ate too much and drank too much but caught up on lots of news and gossip, and made some new plans. It was lovely weather all weekend. Another lady came to visit on Sunday and stayed for supper. She brought her boxer dog to play with Daisy, who was thrilled. She wagged her tail so hard she split the end of it open on something and my house looked like a crime scene since she kept wagging it. I'm still cleaning up little dried blood spots off the door frames. As soon as the weekend was over, the weather changed and I felt awful for about three days ... extreme fatigue and sore joints again. I'm just coming out of that now and only my lower back is bothering me. I did manage to get a small bag made. It's very small but would make a nice little girl's purse. The project was more about blending the two colors evenly, which I think I managed to do. The colors of dark blue and wine blended well and I was happy with the way that turned out. The yarn I used for decoration is a blend of acrylic, wool and mohair. I just love the way it looks and will surely be using a lot more of it in future projects. 

This little pouch looks just like an orange. The inside is red and the outside is yellow, but the blend worked out orange and the pebbled surface resembles orange peel. It's deadly cute! There is yellow Angelina fiber in it too. I have no idea what to use it for, but it's so pretty I will surely find something to put in it. My plans for today involve laying out another small bag ... until my back is feeling better I simply can't handle rolling a large project. This one will have a flap on front and rope strap so that's actually two projects in one as I do the rope separately. There will surely be some Angelina and yarn in it, but I haven't worked out the final design yet. Once it's wet down, I'll make those decisions ... something simple though. I've had some fabulous advice from Andrea Graham, who I consider to be my best resource at the moment as I'm in love with all her work, but especially her bags. I follow a lot of other felt blogs from around the world as well, so there is always some new art to admire and sources of inspiration. 

Checking Out that Wet Felting Thing

     Yesterday was one of those wet dreary days that I really didn't feel like doing mundane housework or anything remotely related to domestic work. I thought it was time to learn something new. Between the three loads of laundry, I managed to absorb quite a few YouTube videos on wet felting and decided to start with the little blue bracelet shown here. Using a piece of hemp tied to the correct size to fit over my hand, I carefully wrapped layers of wool around it and proceeded to wet felt. The bracelet didn't turn out half bad. Yes, there was a large fold on the inside ... so large in fact,that it looks like I used two cords and fused them together. I used too much wool in the whole piece and I carved some away to show the inside purple color, carving too deep so that my sliced area kind of caved in. Acceptable though and once the beads are added, it will be a truly unique piece. It's a bit chunky but like I said, too much material. 


    Then I moved on to the rope. This turned out really well and was much easier than needle felting them so I'm fairly pleased. I could have continued felting this for a much thinner and stiffer rope, but at this point I wasn't sure what to use it for, so stopped at a point where it was flexible, strong but still soft. I think should I need a stiffer rope, I could just repeat the process on the same piece. I really like the rope. 


    By this time I was rather pleased with myself and thought I'd move on to something harder, like a beret. This requires a resist and I had everything set up and ready to roll in no time, with my corrugated cardboard resist, netting, bubble wrap, hot soapy water, etc. Things started to go wrong ... the soap bottle slipped from my hand and broke open on my ceramic kitchen floor, creating a treacherous terrain that had to be cleaned up right away lest I slip and break my neck in the mess. I worked at this piece a long, long time ... and I was really tired when I deemed it completed. However, I could see it was  still too big. Why wouldn't the darn thing shrink? I worked at it some more. Until it came time to cut the hole for my head, I still hadn't really decided which side was up but stuck to my plan anyway.   Once I cut the hole, I had to work on the edges a lot to keep them from coming apart ... and consequently the bottom of the work got a lot more fulling on it than the top, which was thin. It' could have used more wool to begin with. There were a couple of holes in it!!! I managed to push them together but it is way too thin on the top and seems just right on the bottom. Where I'd folded the overhang wool over to the bottom made all the difference. The thing is way too big ... the hole is the correct size but the beret looks like an extra large pizza on my head so it's now a nice piece of wool for  cutting up to become part of another project. I really messed it up but enjoyed the learning experience of it all. I think I can mostly see where and what I did wrong ... but it would have been nice to have an instructor to yell at me at the time I was doing it so the mistakes could have been corrected then. The top of the beret is a lovely weight for a laminated scarf though ... so maybe sometime soon, I'll attempt one of those. Even though it's too thin, I'm surprised by it's strength.


     Did I mention I feel like I've been hit by a truck? Wet felting is a great upper body workout and I likely should have paced myself a little better and not tried to do all three projects in one day. I can barely move my arms this morning. I'm disappointed in the beret and it did use quite a bit of wool. I'm rather intrigued by the whole experience and it's neat to watch the fibers do what they do when hot water and soap is added. It's not likely we're ever going to have an artist of the caliber of Andrea Graham here to hold a workshop in this neck of the woods, so I'll have to rely on instructional videos. I want to try making a bag with a resist. I've been checking out some of the ones Andrea Graham teaches and I just love the look of them. I'm a bit scared now that I've mucked up the beret project, but I have learned a lot about the wool, and it seems to me that the only way I can get this skill is by practice, so I'm going to work on some kind of design for a bag very soon. All in all, the learning experience was very well worth the effort, sore muscles and I did get a neat bracelet and rope out of it. 


     Here I am again .. a couple hours later. I've had another brainstorm and I think it will either work, or be a total disaster with no grey area in between. I'm cutting another resist, just a bit smaller and turning the hat inside out. I'll add more wool and work on that side a lot more and try to ease the material toward the center. I'll have to work on the other side as well, so nothing gets out of center, but not quite so much. Besides, there's only one way to fix sore muscles and that's to work them out. Wish me luck. I haven't given up yet!  I need to learn to see with my fingers (which feel like I haven't any fingerprints left) by touch and I will not let a bunch of wool defeat me!