Wet Felted Baby Blanket- Part 2

More 'bleeding' of the blue roving (and pink sari silk) plus a new friend!

 

The finished blanket.

 

A close up of the wayward blue dye.

 

"Hello handsome!"

 

As you probably already know...

...I'm not a huge fan of 'cute' for babies.

Odd? Yes. A little aberrant, even? Bien sur!...

...but, please, nothing too saccharine for those impressionable little minds!

That's why I had to add a spider to an otherwise tame doggie blanket...

...and I think it makes the piece much more interesting! Giggle.

You may recall an earlier baby blanket of mine that I decorated with pre-felt germs...

...in comparison, this one's positively tame!!

I used dark grey pencil roving to make the spider...

...and yes, I know that it doesn't have the proper number of legs...

...but hey, I'm an artist here, and six looked better to me than eight! :)

You'll also notice that the errant blue dye moved around some during felting...

...and although I'm not exactly happy with it...

...I don't think that it ruined the piece, either.

If you don't look too closely or even squint a bit...

...you might think that I marbled it on purpose! Grin.

Wet Felted Baby Blanket- Part 1

Art batts made with my new 'Production' drum.

 

Detail of sari silk, wool, Angelina, mohair, handspun yarn and dyed curly locks.

 

Laying out white roving and colored fiber on a layer of cotton gauze.

 

Wetting out the piece.

 

Adding a pencil roving dog.

 

Rubbing through bubble wrap to 'set' the design.

 

(Notice the blue roving bleeding a little?

Alas, this problem persisted in the finished piece.)

***************************************************
I recently ordered a second drum for my Deb's Delicate Deluxe drum carder...

...a 'Production' drum that can handle snippets of yarn or fabric...

...Angelina, curly locks, sari silk and other strong fibers.

It's a lot less fiddly to use than the 'Fur' drum...

...and it's so much fun to just throw things in and see what I get! :)

I have a good friend who just had his 7th child...

...and I wanted to make something special for this cherished baby girl.

I laid out a square piece of cotton gauze...

...and covered it with a thin layer of white roving.

I then pulled pieces from my pink art batts...

...and made a frame-like section around the edges.

I filled the center with more white roving...

...and added a second layer of fiber to all of the pink areas.

After wetting down the project with soapy water...

...I added a pencil roving outline of a dog.

In order to help the design felt into the blanket...

...I rubbed it awhile through bubble wrap before rolling.

Next time: the puppy needs a friend!

The Night Before Christmas...

 

 

 

 

Here's another of my thrifted wool pants projects...

...fulled and needle-felted with Christmas designs...

...then briefly wet-felted to 'firm it up'.


I sewed on some small colored beads for 'ornaments'...


...lined it, and put a zipper in for another small makeup bag.

************************************************************

I realized as my Christmas cards were arriving this year...

...that I really don't have any special 'pocket' kind of place for them.

(I used to have some white and red baker's twine with teeny-tiny clothespins that I used for this purpose...

...but I have absolutely no idea where this went!)

So I decided to make one!

I made two layers of green batts on my Cardatrice...

...and sandwiched in a thin, card-sized piece of foam.

I needle felted "Merry Christmas" and a poinsettia onto it...

...then wet-felted it (with a small slit in the top).

It works great!!

(If I make another one, though, I'll make sure that you can still read "Merry" even after the cards are inside it!!) Grin.

It's a Girl!!

 
 
 
 
She's here!

Baby Cardatrice (because she cards in a 'trice'!) arrived at 1:37pm yesterday in the arms of a handsome UPS man.

...but I only had eyes for her!

I unpacked and set her up easily--look at the way she fits perfectly at the end of my chest of drawers!
For a minute there, I was afraid I'd have to lose some of my precious storage (the horror!).

We made some beautiful, fluffy batts together last evening, and I'm going to keep her humming today, as well.

Welcome, Little Baby (with a nod to children's author Aliki)!

I'm Expecting!!

 

No---not a baby, silly! A Deb's Delicate Deluxe hand-turned carder by Pat Green!

I'm so excited, I feel like an expectant mother, again!

Baby DDD is winging her way here at this very moment from her birth home in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and Ohhh, am I going to have projects to show you in the coming months! :)

I'm expecting her delivery to be somewhat less uncomfortable than that of my surprise twins who will turn 18 in three days' time.

Yes, you heard right...surprise...twins!

Hearing the words, "I think there's another baby in there!" has got to be one of the most incredible and thrilling experiences in all of recorded history, and we joke that H-2 was the best 'gift with purchase' in the world!

...but thanks to the 'mad skilz' of my midwife, H-2 went from transverse to footling breech, to a healthy (breech) delivery a mere 13 minutes after her sister, H-1.

So to my amazing and wonderful youngest daughters-a heartfelt and tender HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY to you!!

***I LOVE YOU***

You have brought me more joy than a person really deserves in this lifetime.