Floral Fantasy

This one I laid out yesterday afternoon. I realised I was feeling under pressure to work quickly so that I would have time to wet it out and finish it by the evening. Patience! So then I decided to slow down and just focus on getting the layout the way I wanted it. Several times I walked away, had another idea whilst doing something else, then came back and adjusted or added bits! Then this morning there was this delicious pile of colourful wool just waiting to be turned into felt and I was like a little kid at Christmas, all excited and impatient. My shower and breakfast all got put on hold whilst I dived into the job of wetting, rubbing, rolling, throwing (there are some silk pieces which I wanted to get that lovely crinkly texture from) and rinsing. It's now sitting in the sunshine drying, and I will be adding beading and embroidery in the days and weeks to come - something to look forward to now the evenings are darker.

I made loads of varied coloured pre-felts yesterday, some cords and some dragonfly wings. The wings I made from organza which I trapped between two layers of solufleece (the amazing water soluble fabric). I then machine stitched around some dragonfly wing shapes which I'd traced onto the solufleece. When I had finished stitching I washed away the solufleece and was left with gorgeous shimmering wings. When I do this next time I won't add so much stitching to the pattern inside the wing shapes as I think it does look a little bit heavy.

The final layout before wetting out

I made some short cords using tapestry wool and sprinkled angelina over them to create the dragonfly bodies. They didn't felt into the main piece all that well - the wings did (and perhaps next time I will stitch a piece of plastic behind to ensure they don't felt in) but the body was a bit loose, so I'll need to secure it with some stitches.




And here it is drying in the sun.

Dragonfly became a bit fatter than I wanted

The silk fabric is showing nicely in the sky all textured up