Pinto

This, my latest needle felted sculpture has taken about twenty four hours over three days to complete.
'Pinto'  is made from the Hebredean and Texel fleeces.; and is ready now to gallop off to the gallery !

                                            

                      

                 The 'Our White Room' gallery, showing work by other artists

                  And last, but not least, a piece of work belonging to Jane.

From fleece to fibre and fabric and more...

I know that it's been weeks since I blogged anything, but hey...I've been busy.!

One of my daughters and her family are due to emigrate to Australia very soon now...so we all had one 'ell of an emigration party. Add a family 21st ; another party.
Exhibitions to visit, and friends to support in their ventures.
The craft show season looms, new fleeces and fibres to play with, the garden has suddenly burst forth; and yes indeedy doody, a busy time.

Inspired by the spring flowers, these are a combination of  BFL , Border and Cheviot .  Wet felt and needle felt.

Wet felting the flowers gave me a chance to experiment with how different fibres lock down. The handbag turned out really well.
I was invited along to a local 'spinners group', which developed into a very enjoyable morning. Apart from meeting other like minded folk; who spin, knit, weave etc,; there was also some 'Texel' fleece to share. Well...'nuff said !  The white daisy shape is made from this fibre.

...Rushed home to wash it..........Spooky !    Texel over Hebredean. 
Thank you to Maureen and girls.

My thanks also to Jane at the 'Our White Room', who has given me the opportunity to display my needle felted sculptures in her art gallery.
  

Friends and fleeces

My newly found passion for felting  has developed further since last post.

 Border Leicester / Cheviot blend


A friend who prepares and spins yarns ,. came for a coffee and brought these ( locally produced) fleeces with her.  
 
She also needed a good home for this Hebridean fleece..... 

Hebridean (in it's raw state)

Although I appreciate it may not be everyone's cup of tea to don rubber gloves and get stuck in to cleaning and preparing a mucky fleece, but it gave me the chance and experience of getting the feel of my raw materials.     After several gentle washes and rinses, followed by carding (using two grooming brushes/currycombs) ! It looked and felt ( no pun intended ! ) lovely. Quite coarse, but soft and springy. Visually, it resembled wire wool,  however this was very deceptive. This photo was taken after it had been layered and wet felted with some Border Leicester / cheviot blend. It didn't felt down well, however the different textures were interesting.

To have left it at this stage, I wondered how it would fare in the using; so took the plunge and machine washed the piece. The result was quite acceptable. Still retaining a degree of various textures.  

I also tried some needle felting with it.  The result here was: soft and spongy. Very tactile but would need a solid core for sculptural work.
Note to jewellery makers...( Tammy girl)...it makes a wonderful natural buffer !