3rd Quarter Challenge Entry from Lyn
Thanks to Lyn from Rosiepink for sharing her 3rd Quarter Challenge Entry with us today.
I found the first step in the Third Quarter Challenge (generating a colour palette from a photo) very time-consuming because I was fascinated by the process and just kept feeding photos into the generator! I used http://www.palettefx.com/
Eventually I chose a photo of a photo that I took on last year’s holiday. Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Philip are pictured in a room in the castle on the top of St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, and the photo is displayed on a table in the same room.
I decided to make felt beads, so I chose five colours from the palette then blended many different colours of merino wool tops on my large hand-carders to achieve them. I didn’t blend them to the max because I wanted the colours to be a little mottled. I’d printed the colour palette onto paper then used it as a blending guide, but the blues, although a good match for my printed guide, look different in the photo below to those in the image above, but printed versions are not always faithful to screen versions!
I planned to make a large multi-coloured felt ‘bead’ to cut into segments to make many beads. I didn’t want smooth regular lines dividing the colours, so the wool fibres were put down roughly. Yellow first.
I gently dry-rolled the fibres a little, spritzed them with soapy water, then very carefully rolled them for a few seconds using the mat not my hands. It then looked a bit like a baguette.
I laid out the aqua-blue in a rough rectangular shape, spritzed it with soapy water, then rolled the yellow up into the aqua-blue.
I rolled it gently in the mat for a few seconds then placed it onto the summer-blue.
I carried on in the same way until I had used all five colours – ending with the darkest.
The giant felt bead was very fragile at the beginning so I didn’t want to put pressure on it with my hands. I rolled it using just a bamboo mat by flicking it backwards and forwards …
… and by rolling it, hammock-style, until it began to firm up.
I then hand-rolled it on the bamboo mat for 45 minutes, rinsed it, and put it in a warm place to dry for about 36 hours. The finished bead, point to point, measured 14″ (35.5cm).
I used a craft knife to slice it into beads of varying thicknesses. Some cuts were made on the diagonal to produce oval beads, some cuts were straight to produce round beads, and the largest beads were cut in half.
I threaded 3 thick-cut beads and 10 half-beads onto a metal choker. To get the placement as I wanted, I laid the beads on top of the metal then marked the curve by sticking dressmaker pins vertically into the felt beads. I then stitched the half-beads together in their groups, so that in effect I had 7 wide beads. I made holes in the beads with a thick darning needle using the pins to guide the position of the hole. Then it was (fairly) simple to thread the beads onto the choker. I had been thinking about how to anchor the beads in place on the metal, but the felt is so dense that the beads stay in place on their own!
19 thoughts on “3rd Quarter Challenge Entry from Lyn”
The color generator is quite additive. Thanks for the taking the challenge and for the great tutorial. The necklace is gorgeous! I’ll bet the Queen would be surprised at what a lovely necklace was made from her colors.
I love the challenges Marilyn – they are really good at getting me to think differently! And I enjoy seeing the wide range of challenge interpretations from everybody.
This turned out really nice, Lyn! Without the context, it’d be hard for anyone to work out how the top photo inspired the last! 🙂
That’s the fun part of inspiration – you never know what links it will create in your head!
Very nice necklace and good colour combinatiion. Interesting to see where your inspiration came from.
Thank you. Without the challenge it wouldn’t have happened!
Great necklace and just shows you don’t have to have a beautiful nature picture to get a great pallet.
That’s a good point Ann!
Very impressive project, Lyn! The colors are great and the shapes eye-catching. You and Teri have set the bar high for the 3rd Quarter Challenge.
Thank you for your kind words.
The important thing about the challenge is not the end result but the journey, and every creative journey we take makes us happier bunnies!
Way cool Lyn! I love the necklace and especially the idea of stitching the half beads together to hold their position. Glad you enjoy the challenges and I agree, it’s great to see what everyone comes up with as they end up being all completely different.
Thank you Ruth – stitching the half beads together made life a lot easier!
What a fabulous necklace Lyn, the colours are great, the wavy colour changes are really funky and cutting the discs in half was inspired – well done!
Thank you Teri – I was able to cut the beads in half because of the rolling that seemed to go on forever, but a bonus was that I could feel my bingo wings tightening up a bit!
thank you from The Netherlands for this great tutorial
Thank you. I hadn’t meant it to be a tutorial – just a photo record of the steps from inspiration to completion. So there’s a couple of things I should mention here.
When you roll one colour up in another, roll it very gently – hardly touching it really – and don’t apply any pressure.
When you cut the beads using a craft knife, don’t use a ‘sawing’ action – make the cuts in the same direction and slowly the cut in the felt will get deeper.
What a lovely necklace, Lyn! I’ve been dabbing in jewellery (earrings) lately and I love it that felt can be so versatile 🙂 Love the colours you used, I wonder what Prince Phillip would say to that? 😀
Well, Prince Philip has a knack of opening his mouth and putting his foot in it, so I’m not sure what he’d say!
I really liked the colours, but without the palette generator I doubt that I would have chosen them.
Missed this blog, your necklace is so creative, I love how you have used the colour challenge to create this, bravo