Felting and Fiber Studio

Last week I told you about the Big Ski Chair Affair. I was carving foam to make a rock that will look like it is holding up one end of the chair.

Here’s what it looked like after I finished carving it. I used a heat tool to carve the foam and it takes a while. You have to move slowly and it gives a very unpleasant odor. So I carved for small periods of time. After I got it carved, it was on to the felting process.

I covered the foam with batts, wet it down with warm, soapy water and kept adding more batts until it was covered.

I have to say that the quality of the wool I used was not really very good. Plus it was a bunch of different breeds mixed together that made it a bit more difficult to felt.

Here it is sitting over my sink after the first felting session. I spent several hours for two evenings working on it.

And here it is after the second felting session. It still is quite spongy and very hairy. I am not really satisfied with how it looks. It does look like a rock from a distance but is certainly not very smooth. I will also need to add a bit of wool to the back of the rock as there is some blue foam showing through there. Hopefully, with more rubbing the felt will smooth down a bit. I will probably have to shave it to get rid of the hairiness. Any suggestions?