Lyn

This is one of my early felted pictures from over 15 years ago that I decided to remake as my style has changed quite a bit over the years.

I laid out a simple background, about half of the size of the original picture…

… then I made an inlay of a boat by thinly needle felting it.

After the boat was in place on the background, I used my own pre-felt to add the body of a seagull, 3 yachts and 7 fence posts – then I added wool yarn for fence wire.

I felted the picture by rubbing mainly from the back then rolled it a few times.

When it was dry I needle felted the seagull’s eye then stitched his legs and beak.  The finished size is approx 33 x 20cm (13” x 8”) and much more my style today.

Annie

I still haven’t finished my hydrangeas picture.  So much for a quieter few weeks!  I have done a bit of work on it though.

This is where I was at in the last post.

I decided that although I love a colour explosion the picture was getting too crowded and the turquoise wasn’t working.

So I needed to shake it up.  I turned it upside down and suddenly it felt better and lighter.

Then as much as I loved the fern I removed it from the top as the hydrangeas felt squished (it will become it’s own picture instead).

Then I turned it on its side and removed everything except the hydrangeas.

While that was a convoluted way to get there I finally found a composition that I liked, just a vase display of the hydrangeas to let them speak without my usual bombardment of “stuff”.

Next job was to work on the detail of the hydrangeas and introduce some contrast, and this is the stage I’m still at, but it’s getting there.  I find a lot of fibre and fabric isn’t light enough or dark enough to give much contrast but I’ve been trying to find the best bits of my stash and found a dark green and aubergine that work quite well.

Lyn

I have a small mauve vase that’s damaged so it can’t hold water, but as it’s of great sentimental value I display it with fake flowers.  The tissue paper flowers I made have become faded and jaded so they needed replacing. Although they don’t look too bad in the photo, the pink and yellow have lost their zing and the camera didn’t pick up the dust nestled amongst the petals.

Recently I went to my local garden centre and I saw springtime ‘felt ball flowers’ in small vases for sale – looked easy enough to make and I didn’t need to buy any supplies as I already have a stock of wire and wool to make felt beads.

Ta-Dah!

We bought wool fibre colour sample books years ago that are not helpful anymore.  What to do with pages and pages of little bits of wool?

After making the vase flower beads I thought maybe I could make lots more beads with the bits of wool.  I knew they would be smaller than those I made for the vase and I was pleased with my first one.  Then I realised that I would be making beads for the sake of it as I don’t have a plan for them.  So maybe the scraps will end up on the drum carder?

I have a stock of card blanks and from time to time I like to make greetings cards using scraps of fabric or felt on the front and finish with a paper insert.  This 6” square card was decorated with cut felt shapes for a relative’s birthday.

What have you made from felt scraps?  They’re too precious to throw away aren’t they?