Third Quarter Challenge – Beach Flowers

Third Quarter Challenge – Beach Flowers

Beach Flowers

I love the challenges and the brief for this one is “to add something underneath the top layer of wool that will change the surface after felting”. I added resists under the top layers of wool to enable me to change the surface of ‘Beach Flowers’.

I started with two very fine layers of white merino wool – layout size approx 58 x 31cm (23″x 12″), then I made the final base layer from blue and yellow merino wool.

one fine layer of blue and yellow merino wool over 2 fine white base layers of white merino wool

Then I spent several hours sifting through my fabric stash.  It’s wonderful to have such a huge choice of bits and pieces, but after tipping it all out onto the tables and floor to see what I had, my room was such a mess that I had to take a tea-break to build up the strength to pack the stash away.

I chose 5 different materials to represent sky, sea and sand, then I placed them on top of the wool fibres.

fabric strips laid onto merino wool base layers

Here’s a close-up to show the fabrics.

 

close up of fabrics on top of merino wool base layers

I made paper circles of various sizes (to represent the flower heads) then played around with the placement of them until I was happy.  Alan Titchmarsh says you should plant flowers in odd number groups for the best effect, so I plumped for 9.

trying out different size circles

Then I replaced the paper circles with bubble-wrap circles that would act as resists.

resists in place

I covered the resists with 2 layers of bright pink merino wool…

pink layer started to cover the resists

…then finished with a very skimpy layer of silver grey merino wool (the grey was the only colour my camera refused to portray accurately – it looks more blue doesn’t it?).

skimpy layer of silver grey

I felted the piece very gently to start with so as not to disturb the fabrics before the wool fibres had a chance to migrate through.

I didn’t tidy up the edges during felting because I intended to use a mount board (matte board) around the flowers.

When the felt was dry, I cut the resists out then made the petals stay open by using a felting needle along the base of each petal – inside and outside.

forming the petals

I needle-felted 2 triangles of scrap white felt into one of the flowers to give a focal point, then I cut a mount (matte) to a size that allowed the petals to overhang a little.

Beach Flowers

Thank you for setting the challenge Ruth!

18 thoughts on “Third Quarter Challenge – Beach Flowers

  1. Wow! I love this so much! But how did you remember where the circles of resist actually we’re.. you seem to have pinpointed the exact centre for cutting on each one. I’m fairly new to felting and have not been very successful with Nuno felting but feel that I need to try again 😀 as always I try running before walking.

    1. Thank you Jane. Because the resists were bubbly and only under 2 layers of wool, they were easy to see and feel.
      To make the edges of the petals neat, I started cutting from the edge of the circle straight across to the other side – if I had started the cutting from the middle every time, the tips of the petals would have become mangled.

  2. Fabulous Lyn! As usual your meticulous thought and planning has paid off. Cleverly done indeed. I would just plough in and hope for the best, not the best approach….. 😉

    1. Thank you! The weather’s been very bright here so photos were easier to take than usual!

  3. I love it! Such a creative idea to have a landscape behind the flowers. I can see this idea with many different types of flowers in different landscapes, perhaps a series?

  4. Wow, this is great, Lyn! The different features give it so much depth and so much to look at 🙂

    1. Thank you Zed – without the challenge I wouldn’t have thought of it so keep the challenges coming!

  5. Imaginative, ingenious, well planned and beautifully executed. I would have picked it out as ‘yours’ Lyn from a long line up – lovely

    1. Thank you Ann – I love making brightly coloured stuff … as you may have noticed!

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