Pods and Cords

Pods and Cords

I’ve mentioned we’ve been exploring resists at the Well Being centre recently, and one of the group said she’d really like to make a round vessel, so I thought we’d follow rosiepink’s vessel tutorial. It turned out there was only 2 of us there early enough to have a go, so we’re doing it again this week, but this is mine:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd the other side:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve been looking for ‘smoothing tools’ for vessels for years, like Lyn’s suggestions of a baby’s rattle or laundry liquid dispenser, I keep checking the baby section, and dog toy section, even the kitchen section for a ladel, but still haven’t found one! I did buy some foam for resists though and I thought I’d try it out and make a new birdpod. I remembered those coconut ones, and tried to do a similar shape. I didn’t get it quite right, but using lots of coarse wools did give it a hairy coconut look, though:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI need to make a cord for it to hang it up. Usually, I make cords from offcuts or make some handspun yarn and felt that, but I had an idea for some garden ornaments and thought I’d give it a go using a bamboo mat. I can’t remember which wool I used, I think it was something from Wollknoll labelled just ‘Scottish grey’. I had a hard time getting photos of all my things, it went too dark yesterday, so this morning I took them into the garden and tried them in a few places, when I put the first cord down on the paving stones it camouflaged itself, even the pattern seems to match!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThat was just the test piece for the idea I wanted to try. The only trouble was, I needed a larger mat than a placemat. I looked at my living room blinds, just hanging there with a huge roll of unused bamboo sat at the bottom. I unrolled it and there must have been two feet of spare blind, so a few snips and a few tied ends later, I had a shorter window blind and a new rolling mat! This cord hasn’t completely dried yet, but I know I need to make the next one a bit thinner, and I think that will help it be firmer too, but it turned out a lot better than I expected:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAs usual, whenever I’m in the garden, I had a visitor, noseying from the background, poor little thing has no feet 🙁

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

17 thoughts on “Pods and Cords

    1. Thanks, Judith 🙂
      Thanks for the link, too, I did know that thread, string, yarn etc was one of the main reasons for pigeons’ stumps, I always try to pick up the threads from my netting dried outside. I didn’t know about hair though.

  1. Great pods Zed and the rainbow rope is gorgeous. Has your other half noticed that a chunk of the bamboo blind is missing yet? 😉

    Thanks for the link Judith, I had always assumed pigeons with club feet had an infection of some sort, I rarely ever see other birds with the same problem.

    1. Thanks, Teri 🙂
      no one is ever surprised about re-purposing in our house, I’ll trim the other blind before it’s noticed though!

  2. You’re a true felter Zed. Household goods, such as blinds, are not there for comfort/visual enjoyment but for providing emergency felting equipment!
    (btw – baby rattles and kitchen utensils are fairly common in the tattier back-street charity shops and boot sales.)

    Your vessel turned out beautifully! I like the contrast between the inner and outer that peeps through at the top.

    The rainbow rope is gorgeous and the coconut pod blends in well with the natural colours of the garden. Chameleon cord has adapted well to his surroundings.

    Poor stumpy!

    1. Thanks, Lyn 🙂
      I’ll ask my dad to keep an eye out, he goes to car boot sales regularly. Maybe I could make chameleon pods for more urban areas!

    1. Thanks, Karen 🙂
      The very first time I tried felting I had to adapt the instructions, they were brief and vague and mentioned a bamboo blind, all I had was bamboo screening for the garden, so I used an offcut. Not exactly easy to use, but worked well enough to get me addicted!

  3. Great save with the blinds Zed! The bird pod and yellow pod look great as well as the rainbow cord.

    1. Thanks, Marilyn 🙂
      The pod’s actually green but maybe it’s not the best photo!

  4. Great looking pods! I still need to try my hand at making these someday 🙂

    Poor little pigeon… It’s human hair that does that to their feet, did you know? I hope the wee thing manages to live a nice life like that. Did you leave it some food? 😀

    1. Thanks, Leonor 🙂
      I didn’t know it was hair, I knew about thread and yarn, but Judith posted a link which mentioned hair. I can sleep well knowing it isn’t mine, being a crewcut! My pigeons are the best fed around, they get everything from Quorn to cous cous to tofu, as well as bread! One of them had a nice bath this morning, they lay on the grass with its wings out 🙂

    1. Yeah, there’s not much around the house safe from felters! I’ve missed a few posts too recently.

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