Sunday, January 20, 2013

Wet Felted Poppies

 My first wet felting attempt which I've done a bit of hand stitching on. This little piece is only 14 x 10cm.
 I haven't done any sewing on this piece yet which is approximately 30 x 30cm.  I'm going to put a piece of interfacing behind it and machine stitch the outline of the hills and trees to bring them out a bit.  The poppies in the foreground I'll hand stitch on with french knots and straight stitches.  Have to see how that goes.
 This is how the 2 pieces looked to begin with. Here I had pulled pieces of plain wool roving in 2 layers in a cross hatch pattern over a piece of screen on a piece of bubble wrap.
 Here is my 3rd layer of dyed wool fibres that I'm attempting to make into a landscape.
 The red bits were from a piece of pre-felted wool that I cut out for poppies.
 
When I was finished with laying out the wool fibres, I placed another piece of screen over top which I then proceeded to wet and soap down with warm soapy water.  I turned over the screen wool fibre sandwich and soaped and sponged the other side as well.
After soaping and wetting I very carefully removed the felted pieces from the screening, rinsed them under the tap with warm water and then rolled up in bubble wrap around a piece of a swimming noodle. We rolled our noodles 15 minutes one way and 15 minutes another and then did it again and yet again as we worked at agitating the wool fibres so they would stick together and the wool fibres would felt.  I tied my roll up with pieces of old nylon to take home with me and then unroll.  It took a few days for the pieces to be completely dry.  I found my first felting experience to be a huge amount of fun and am quite pleased with how my pieces turned out. I have to give Karen and Rhonda a tremendous amount of thanks for providing all the wool and walking us through the whole process.  

14 comments:

  1. So pretty..I love the poppies so much xxx

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  2. What a lovely thing to do and to bring home to work on.

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  3. Hello Jenny, You did a very great job on your first felting project. I love felting and your poppies are great and of course stitching always makes your piece shine. Lovely job. Hugs Judy

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  4. You have put so much work into such a tiny little venue. The results are amazing. Creative Hearts are Happy Hearts...

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  5. Oh, I like these, JPP! Felting looks like it would be a wonderful way to use all kinds of fibers, yarns, and embellishments to create unique pieces. Your first 2 projects look great!

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  6. Jenny another technique you have managed very well, the pieces are so so picturesque, look forward to seeing more of these. Your instructions are very clear, I have a notebook that I write other`s blogs down in that I want to have a go at and this is to be added to the list.
    One question what on earth is a swimming noodle?

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  7. Hello

    Just found your blog.
    That piece is beautiful!
    Your stitching is lovely.

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  8. You have created something really beautiful, this is a technique that I haven't tried, it looks so interesting!

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  9. Jenny , this is one more 'thing ' I wanted to try, but I'm leaving it all up to you !!!
    I remember ATC's when they first were written about on a Yahoo group, and of course I joined, back then it was all about paper, collage and even some paint... Now? it's wonderful... Little masterpieces like yours in all mediums. Love them... BJ

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  10. The wet felting seems quite a job. The results look great.
    I'll stick to dry felting though. Machine or needle.

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  11. This is amazing! The process looks so fun!!! I would like to try it one day! It reminds me of when I was making homemade paper.

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  12. Thank you for sharing your technique. I have never tried this but I am fascinated by it. It is still on my bucket list...with a million and one other things. You should be very proud of your results.

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  13. It sounds like fun and looks wonderful - what a beautiful piece you have created your first time at it!
    I hope you show pictures of it once you add the stitching - I'm curious to see the changes...

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