Today, I'm taking a break from my travel blog to write a bit about felting...
..."What is it that you're saying? This is supposed to be a felting blog???" Oooops! Giggle.
Sorry if it's been a bit more travelogue than wool, lately!
Between our vacation, my work schedule, my unfinished studio and a little thing called 'having no electricity for 24 hours due to a storm'...
...I haven't done many felting projects lately.
This table runner was inspired by the lovely ceiling of St. Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol...
...a beautiful 14th Century Gothic church with a marvelous gilt-edged vaulted ceiling.
This weight of this ceiling is supported by over one thousand bosses...
...which act as functional keystones.
A boss is a small raised carving the size of a spread hand...
...which is used to conceal the join in a vaulted ceiling.
I became so enamored with this design...
...that I had to try to replicate it in felt.
I laid out my design on the surface of a piece of gauzy muslin fabric...
...using orange roving strips for the lines and red roving balls for the bosses.
I covered the surface of the fabric with white wool batts...
...and wetted it all with soapy water.
I used netting to cover everything and used my hands and a felting stone to begin the felting process...
...making sure that special attention was paid to the edges of the piece and the bumpy sections where the balls of wool were.
I felted it for a long time...
...in order to get the muslin to ruche and pucker.
The 'good side' is the muslin side...
...where the design shows through...dimly, as if through a curtain.
The photo is of some of my travel spoils...
...clockwise from top left: muslin (used in this project), Cath Kidston fabric,
David Shrigley postcards, Thornton's toffee, a Wallace and Gromit pin,
notecards from the Architecture Centre bookshop,
pearl-headed pins and acrylic buttons (in my colors) from Bath,
a scarf, fuchsia Clarks shoes,
and onion and mango/ginger root chutney.
Fun!!!
