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For four days (and my family away camping) I immersed myself in felt-making.
Click any picture below to open a new window containing a larger image. |
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| Hand-felted scarves and table runners - here's a great way to explore collage. In the first photo at left you can see two scarves at the layout stage. Wool fibers and shapes cut from "pre-felts" (wool fabric created from fibers that isn't yet fully felted) are collaged on base prefelt fabric.The piece is covered with a curtain and wetted down. The curtain is removed and the wet wool is rolled in pool cover which looks like tough green bubble wrap. It then gets rolled back and forth several hundred times. The friction created by the movement causes the woolen fibers to start matting together. Eventually the piece is removed from the roll and warm water applied. It is thrown and rubbed to further mat the fibers together and create a durable felt fabric piece. | ||||
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| layout stage | various scarves | detail | detail - pieces of polyester fabric collaged onto wool | nuno felt - wool and silk felted together |
| The wallhanging below was designed specifically for my front entrance hall. The colours were dictated by existing decoration. I have a penchant for mermaids and goddesses associated with the sea so I decided to create a piece around this theme. | ||||
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| rough sketch before I started. | the finished piece. As I cut into the main prefelt fabrics the shape become very feminine, looking almost like a gown. This influenced the way I embellished it. In the end I named it "Sea Goddess Gown". | layout of the components. The smaller pieces were added to the main piece, layered between plastic so they only felted in where they were meant to attach. | detail of a polymer clay embellishment created for the piece. Pearls symbolise the anima, or feminine principle. A mermaid's mirror came to represent her vanity, but if we trace back to earlier times it was symbolic of the adage "know thyself". I like that. | this felt frill, the silk ribbon and tissue silk, beads and embellishments were all stitched in place after felting was complete. The result was very frou-frou; more than I normally would indulge in. But I think a sea goddess would like it. |
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Felt collage is very much about shape and colour and texture. Being wool, felt also looks very warm and dry, and the sea isn't about those things at all. Contrasting shiny embellishments were stitched into the Sea Goddess Gown wallhanging - mirrors, pearls, beads, rhinestones, silk ribbons and metallic thread. I also created textured polymer clay embellishments. I made a decision as I worked on this piece to design other pieces that combine felt and polymer clay. |
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