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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

…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?).

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.

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.

Thank you for setting the challenge Ruth!