Felting and Fiber Studio

My favorite physician is retiring this month and I wanted to give him a special parting gift.  So, what better than a good bottle of wine with a handmade cozy?

I had made a wine cozy/gift bag a while back, but the resist was just a bit off.  I took Lyn’s advice and straightened the lines and rounded the bottom slightly.

I made some Nuno prefelt for the leaves and rolled a variety of grapes in preparation.

I didn’t want to replicate the whole first design, so I decided to have the grapes hanging from an old worn fence.  Of course, I forgot to take pictures after I laid out the background and began adding the design elements.  My bad.

Unlike the first one I did using corriedale as the base, I used black prefelt.  Then added some light gray batts from my scarflette, a little mulberry silk and a darker gray for texture in the fence.    Then I added the grapes, leaves and vines and began rubbing.

Some of the vines and grapes were stubborn so I had to do a little needlefelting to fix them after the fulling.  Also I think because of the prefelt, there wasn’t as much shrinkage, so I had to keep fulling to get a good fit.

For the turnover top I used a little green batt on the inside and attached the leaf and vine.  I made a few holes and wove the vines through the top to tighten it slightly.

Again for the bottom, I took Lyn’s advice and bashed the heck out of the bottom to get the rounded shape I needed.  Thanks Lyn!

Here are some views and a close up.