felting stages..

Felt Making 3 Comments

I thought that I would show how one of my pieces of felt develop, from lots of fluffy fibres into a solid piece of felt. This is not so much the process, but how the materials change from being the wool tops to the wet felt to finally the dry finished piece. One of the reasons I wanted to record this is because I’ve found I have to look past what I can see in front of me and use my imagination, and the experience I’m building to get the whole picture.

storm_edge_dry.jpg

So this is the first one, once I have built up all the colours and layers, using my merinos wool tops, silk tussah, silk noil and throwers waste. Usually I use white as a base, but I wanted to have as much depth as possible, so instead I use 3 blues and purples to make up the two base layers. From that I built up the swirling motions that I want to have, both darker for the distance and lighter in the foreground. It may seem abstract, but it have have a basis in real life.

storm_edge_wet.jpg

This is the second one, once I have felted it, it is still damp/wet, and needs to dry. It is at this point that I always worry, because the darker sections, always seem a lot darker and I worry about it!

storm_edge_felt.jpg

This is the third and final image, all felted and ready to go!
See what I mean about the darker sections, they stay dark, and the paler/lighter sections come through when they dry, pleased with this, room for more development, so I hope I will get a chance to do a bit more to do tonight. Hopes this all is helpful and makes some sense!