I showed you my design development process on my last post for the 3rd Quarter Challenge. Now on to the felting portion.
Here is the design that I have traced on to a heavy interfacing. I was really thinking I would use a lighter interfacing but this is the first I found so I used it. The resist is to prevent wool migration in the area of the design using a darker color on the bottom and lighter color on the top of the resist.
I cut out the design with a sharp craft knife.
Here’s the design completely cut out. I really like how it looks and I’m excited to see how it will work when felted in between two layers of wool. I had originally planned on using black and grey wool but changed my mind as I didn’t have the black wool right at hand. I decided to use a mixed blue batt and yellow.
I laid out a couple of layers of blue but looking at this photo now, I realize that the blue was just not dark enough and not a big enough contrast to the yellow.
I added my resist on top of the blue.
Then I covered it with yellow.
Here it is ready to be wet down.
I worked the felt mainly from the back because I felt like I was shifting the blue fibers as they migrated through the yellow when I rubbed on the front. It felt like I was making a fiber pizza crust.
The result when it was wet.
And dry. A bit underwhelming to say the least and I was disappointed. I think a coarser wool on the bottom layer would have helped and a stronger contrast of colors might have made a difference. But all is not lost. I am planning on hand stitching around the design to bring it back to life. So more next week!