Lyn

I took inspiration, for the ‘Landscape Challenge’, from an old photo of my dad stood in front of ‘The Long Man’ of Wilmington in East Sussex.  The figure is carved into the chalk hill and is approx 235 feet high.

I liked the different colours and curves in the landscape, and at certain times of the year the fields in the middle ground would be brighter colours.

I was also inspired by Ruth to use up stuff that I already had, so out came the scrap box!  I sorted out several pieces of felt of different colours then chopped them into small pieces.

I decided to make the landscape first then needle felt the chalk figure on afterwards, so I arranged the coloured pieces – a bit like making a mosaic – on top of four layers of white merino wool.

This technique requires a pair of tweezers and a swear box – moving the little pieces of felt across loose white merino wool fibres is a test of patience and persistence.

I felted it all together very carefully so that the pieces didn’t move out of place.  Here is an angled shot after felting showing the texture …

… and a close up to show the variety of colour made by chopping up bits of felt …

… and doesn’t the reverse look pretty?  Quite a strong migration of colour through four layers of white!

I started to tack some white yarn onto the hill to represent the ‘Long Man’ but it didn’t look right – so I needle felted a different chalk figure!

The ‘Uffington White Horse’ in Oxfordshire is the oldest British chalk figure, believed to have been carved in the late bronze or early iron age, approx 3,000 years ago.

The finished size of the coloured area is 42 x 30cm (16.5″ x 12″).

Annie

Thought I’d do the same as mum after reading Ruth’s post about using things up so I gathered fabric and felt scraps and laid out a piece of felt with lots of blocks and bits that could loosely potentially become landscapes through a viewfinder later.

One of the more interesting pieces was created by using up all of the frilly edge pieces cut from various bits of felt over the years.

Do you remember inchies, twinchies and thrinchies?  I don’t know if they are still popular in the craft world but I decided this would be a good way to get lots of abstract landscapes from my piece of felt.  I made a 1 inch, 2 inch and 3 inch viewfinder from white cardboard (just a piece of card with a square hole cut out).  I cut four 3 inch pieces…

…then nine 2 inch pieces…

…then I was down to the scraps so I thought I’d see what I could get out of them.  With a bit of imagination, and possibly a few stitches or a dab of paint, these sixteen 1 inch pieces make cute tiny abstract landscapes too.

This was a fun little project – a bit like the equivalent of collage and cutting and sticking in a sketchbook.   I might make some more landscapes with more intention later but this was a great play exercise to generate ideas. Simple is good sometimes!