Annie (rosiepink)
I made this felted snowy winter trees table centre as my idea for the Q4 challenge which was to create a textile item inspired by the work of Eric Ravilious. It is approx 60cm / 24″ across.
This turned out to be a double challenge for me as I chose his woodcut work for my inspiration, with a monochrome palette, and as you may know, I usually love love love to use lots of colours.
I just really liked the subject and the way he stylised it. The over sized snow flakes really appealed to me!
I had started off thinking I was going to make a bowl but once I’d felted it I decided I liked it as it was for now. I may well change that later though. I did make the centre thicker when laying out the base as I thought it might need the reinforcement if stitched into a bowl due to its size.
The base is made from white Merino wool tops (laid out over a wire ring for wreath making to attempt a decent circle shape!)
Then for the majority of the trees I used some very fragile t-shirt material that I’m really pleased didn’t disintegrate since I couldn’t be bothered to make a sample this time. I also used some other reclaimed fabrics from other garments and some yarns.
I found it hard to keep the design simple and took it apart a few times after over complicating it (and adding then removing colour!) but got there in the end. I’m surprised how much I like it as I would not normally have made something in one colour (it’s all shades of blue but does look black in places in the photos).
I noticed I made the branches a bit short since it was more pattern based to make the circle, but in reality they would have been longer and overlapped a bit but I like the way it turned out, and might even go on to make a picture in the same way.
