I’m working on some projects for the Third Quarter Challenge, but had completed this project earlier which also falls into the Second Quarter Challenge.
While going through some old craft boxes, I found a piece of crochet I did many, many moons ago as a young woman. I set it aside with my felting supplies. Every once in a while I’d pick it up and set it on some roving or prefelt, unsure what I wanted to do with it.
It was definitely acrylic, so I used a small tail on a prefelt when I was making samples and it felt in very nicely. However, because it has such great dimension I didn’t want to lose that either. Finally, I made some gray batts with merino and corriedale and decided that’s what I’d do and use a resist under the center so I wouldn’t lose that nice dimension.
I purposely left the center open so that would be firmly attached.
Here is the result:
I don’t know why this one looks orange. Lighting I guess. But you can see where some of the gray migrated up through crochet piece.
My next dilemna was what to do with it. I tried it over a small pillow, but didn’t like the way it pushed the design up. Then I tried a couple of pre-made square frames. But I didn’t like them either. The frames were either too wide, the wrong color or not big enough.
There was something lacking. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I tried stitching a design around it. That gave it a little balance, but I’m still not sure.
I may take it to a professional framer and have something like this done. I tried a new program — Ribbet to super impose a frame. I know the top and bottom are cut off a little but it was just to see if I liked it.
Or this?
What do you think?
At least now I have a piece of my crafting history preserved and not stuck away in a box.
Wow, that’s really fancy crochet, Marilyn! I like the way it looks with the loopy design around the edge, maybe you could mount it on a deep canvas like that? (Going off on a tangent a bit, ‘dilemna’ is actually spelt ‘dilemma’ and apparently always has been, even though the majority of us will swear it never used to be. I only learnt that recently and also learnt that kind of thing where masses of people misremember is called the Mandela effect.)
Thanks Zed! I hadn’t thought about a larger mount. Thanks for the catch on dilemma. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to spellcheck.
Your pretty crochet reminds me of the needlepoint projects I did when I was very young. What patience we had! But as to how to present your crochet piece–what about planning to make it part of something larger?
Thanks Cathy! I have no idea what something bigger would be, but I’ll think on it.
Great use of a crocheted piece Marilyn. I know this is way off of what you were thinking but I think it looks very floral. I think it would be cool if you made felt leaves of a variety of sizes to go around it and then frame it with the leaves sticking out around the frame. That would give it a nice pop of contrasting color and give it more interest,.
I think I’ll use some paper or plastic leaves to see if I like the look first, thanks.
Thanks Ruth! I hadn’t thought of it as being floral. Are you suggesting I remove the edging or keep that along with the leaves? I suppose it would work either way. But I’m thinking the leaves would be a nice addition to the stitching?
Either or is fine, whatever you think looks best.
What nice crochet. I am hopeless with needles of any sort. the felt come out nice. I am not sure what to do with it. I do like it with yarn around the edge as you say it balances some. Ruth’s flowers would be nice too. You must have had a heck of a time getting the resist out.
Thanks Ann! I had to cut out the resist in small pieces.:-). I haven’t done any crochet for ages, but I didn’t want to keep it in a box any longer.
Gorgeous!
Thanks Marylou!
What a beautiful piece of crochet Marilyn, I like the loopy red line border best but also like Ruth’s suggestion of having some leaves forming a border that “escape” the boundaries of the mat board, that would look great too…
Thanks Teri! I may try the leaves using paper first to see how I like it. 🙂
Crochet and felting go so well together – it was a great idea to leave the centre as you did.
I like Zed’s idea of the loopy design on a deep canvas.
Thanks Lyn! I’ll definitely look into it.