Valentine's: Wet-Felted Cards

I am getting back into felting after taking a hiatus to focus on botanical art  and illustration.  So, here goes:

I purchased some "vintage" lace and trimmings at a yard sale and incorporated them into some wet felting to cut into heart shapes for Valentines!  (See my entry on the process of wet felting). Now, lace and other non-wool textiles will not easily felt (that is, they will not "lock in" to the wool base) unless they are applied near the end of layering for wet felting, and covered with a thin "web" of wool roving.  Even so, the non-wool fiber scraps should be needle felted into place if you are going to use the resulting fabric for some application that will need to endure lots of wear and tear.  But, for a greeting card, no problem!

Dogwood Pins

Making some dogwood flower pins for little gifts.  Dogwood is the state flower 

and state tree of Virginia!

Cattails

Here is an old work, just when I was starting, felted cattails: 

Mostly, I am showing this to give an idea of how I "free-hand" lettering.  I first go on my computer and pick out a font I like and print off the words I want to felt.  Then, I loosely form the letters in wool, and lighty lock them in, so I can pull them off if I make an error.  Here is the progression (this is the Latin name for cattails):

 The pins mark a straight line:

 

I find it hard to draw with a fabric marking pen on nubby wool, so I "draw" with

loose wool instead!

New Work

I have been interested in trees lately, especially as I have lots of brown/gray, hand spun, "thick and thin"

wool yarn from a friend.  I also had a piece of prefelt, dyed with eucalyptus during a

dyeing lesson (yes, it dyed this lovely rust color).   So, I created this "tree," more like a wisteria trained to a standard ("training to a standard" means to created a tree-like form, as can be done with roses).  Pretty thing, deserves a nice frame!

Keep needling!

Dye It

I have been wanting to learn to dye my own wool to achieve the colors I want, especially greens.  A friend gave me a dyeing lesson last fall.  We used a plant from my garden to produce this color:

                                    Dyed roving and felt

What plant might it be?  Eucalyptus!  Some eucalyptus (you know, that gray-green tree) are only

marginally hardy where I live, but I love them and keep planting them.  The last one came down in a

storm, and I saved the leaves for a friend who is very skilled in natural dyes.  She boiled the leaves 

(very aromatic) outdoors, let the dye pot sit overnight, boiled it again, added the wool and soaked it 

until we had achieved the intense color above. Who'd a thunk it?

Finished!

My student, Katherine, finished the wet-felted landscape that she started just today.  Fabulous!

"Aspen"

Day 2 of Wet-Felting Class

More beautiful work from students in my wet-felted landscapes class!  Still have some finishing to do, but they are wonderful!