(Felting in adversity)

My plans for this post were to tell you about making the leaves, touching up the upper petals and adding the beard to the lower ones then maybe even showing you the final assembly of the iris flower.

Well, that plan went out the window with the arrival of the GIANT storm that hit Ottawa. We had the sky turn black, high winds and hail followed by a sudden lack of power. The storm was not too long in duration but the aftermath was impressive. We were fine but around us there were trees down and one even smote a bus!! (What rude thing did the bus say to the storm?  Only the driver was on the bus and was not hurt.)

1-2 Three houses away is the transit-way where the bus and tree had an altercation.

3

This was the cherry tree across the street and 3 house down. A lot of its small branches were in my driveway.

4 (5 houses away) two houses down the side street from the cherry tree this huge tree twisted and dropped on the house.

After the storm we had no power for 6 days. The house seemed quite dark even in daylight. I tried to work at my computer desk for the few hours in the afternoon that it had direct sunlight. This did not give a long window for felting so I focused on garden spring cleanup and setting up the outside studio!

5-6  Afternoon felting at the woefully dead computer(no power is no fun for electronics)

I lay down the base and added the wire and highlight greens for the Iris leaves.

I had two ways to check for thin spots, the first was by feel (Palpation) and the second was by looking through the leaf toward the window. Both worked well to give a more consistent thickness to the leaf.

7 Looking for thin spots by using the window light

After a couple of days of no power, I had finished 3 audio books and my iPod was almost out of power!  There was an electronic charging station not too far away but parts of the roads were still closed some from fallen trees and some from construction. So plan B was lets listen to the news in the car and charge the iPod and my (again dead) phone at the same time. Humm…. I wonder if I can felt in the car….

8 My KIA Soul survived the storm with only a few new decorative leaves stuck to it. (We were very lucky!)

9-11 that would be a yes to felting on the steering wheel (No I was not driving! Just sitting in the driveway).

I don’t think this will catch on as a great felting location, at least not on the driver’s side of the car. I also learned, from the radio, that the power company expected to have most of the houses without power back on within 2 to 4 days and a few more days for difficult locations (with fingers crossed I whispered “please don’t be a difficult house!!”).

I quickly discovered another problem in this lack of power. All my reference photos were on the computer!! No problem, go check the peach iris in the backyard……oh there is bud damage and there still in bud! (no flowers to look at as reference!) OK, no problem keep working on the leaves!

12 Iris with dub damage.

On the positive side the lilac are in full bloom and smell heavenly!

13 pink Japanese lilac

The next day is gray, overcast and Rain, lots of rain (no! I do not want to do wet felting!) so I have to wet-poof my outside studio. 3 clear plastic table cloths, 1 pack of blue plastic close pegs, a pair of scissors and the broken umbrella I hoped we mite be able to fix and I had a reasonably drip poof work area! (no wet felting for me today),not that there is anything wrong with wet felting I just was enjoying dry felting and was trying to prolong the enjoyment.

14 Outside studio partly wet proof, I found another drip and added the third sheet of plastic.

15 third piece of plastic did the trick and the drip is averted!

16 Yes, it’s still raining but I am working on Iris leaves in drip-proof happiness.

17 making thin firm felt by needle felting in not fast but I am vary happy with the Thin aspect of the leaves!

I got this far and it was time to go pull books for the guilds next library day (which will be the day this is posted.)

18 the OVWSG studio where the guilds library is. (Ruth’s Book is one of the ones that will be going out this month! It’s a fabulous resource thanks Ruth!!!) all the requested books have been pulled and the library is ready for Sunday.

I am just back and have been busy at our first Guild demo since covid hit. But I will tell you about that and hopefully finishing this Iris project next week. Have fun and keep felting.