Under Water Again
I was really fascinated with Teri Berry’s book resist tutorial in January for the first Quarter Challenge. So, I decided to give it a try.
https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/01/22/book-resist-tutorial-by-teri-berry/
Since my mind has been under the sea lately, I doodled around and came up with a design that reminded me of coral. I decided to have an odd number of pieces.
I inverted the copies so the arms would be facing in different directions. I used an old shower curtain for the resist then sewed them together.
I soon discovered even though it was a heavy shower curtain it was challenging to get the fibers tight enough around the appendages. The first layer was Romney which may have been a mistake because it is a long staple.
After I covered all the sides with the Romney, I covered each side with nepps because I wanted a bumpy texture. Then the second layer were batts which combined natural hand dyed Domestic 56s with Madder that Cathy (Luvswool) had given me from her artist residency in Arkansas. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2015/05/09/dyeing-with-plants/ I was a little short so I used some my own hand dyed orange Cheviot mixed in.
It was a large bundle so there was a lot of rubbing before I could do any rolling.
When I finally cut out the resist I had to use my finger to open up the appendages and rub and roll. My fingers got a real workout! Because the wool had expanded over the shower curtain resist I had to really work each “finger” to get them to shrink and not felt together. But the resulting lumpiness was the look I was going for.
Here it is drying.
It was quite hairy so I had to shave it several times. Here are the different sides.
Here is a view from the top.
After a few more shaves, I decided it deserved a sea setting.
Thank you Teri for providing the tutorial and inspiration! And thanks to Cathy for the beautiful natural hand dyed wool!