Felting

I have been doing a lot of research lately & I felt (geddit?!) that I needed to get back to practical making and experimenting, so taking my photos of an honesty seed in its seedpod as inspiration, I got out the felting books that I have borrowed from my sister-in-law, looked up a few felting tutorials and got busy!

Felting is something I have not had much experience of, but looking at these macro photo's, it seemed the obvious medium to use.

After a little research, I found out that wet felting is the process best used to make a felted fabric, and dry felting or needle felting is how you add surface decoration to either the felt fabric you have made by wet felting, or any other suitable fabric.

These are some of the tutorials I watched on wet felting:

http://www.feltbetter.com/feltmaking.asp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNMs2LSXq70

I also borrowed a couple of books from my sister in law:

Feltmaking by Deborah McGavock & Christine Lewis
Art in Felt & Stitch by Moy Mackay

So once I had watched a few tutorials and read through the books, I was ready to have a go!  I went with the bubble wrap method as I didn't have a special rolling mat - for a first attempt I went with the cheap & cheerful method:

My first attempt at wet felting with bubble wrap. Excuse the Pierrot towel - the poor thing has survived 35 years of being my beach towel as a child, my hair dying towel as a teenager and adult and now it also gets used for all manner of fibre and yarn related processes too.

I started by laying out a towel and then a piece of bubble wrap twice the size of the piece of felt I wanted to make bubble side up.

Make a horizontal layer of pinched fibres.

Then a vertical layer...

Then another horizontal layer.

Soak the whole thing through with warm soapy water from a spray bottle and fold over the bubble wrap. Start to gently press and rub the fibres without moving them too much until they start to fuse. Increase the pressure and rubbing as the felt comes together. Wrap the bubble wrapped felt around a rolling pin, hold in place with elastic band and roll 50 times. Open it all out, turn the felt 90 degrees and repeat. Then dunk it in alternating hot and cold water until it stops shrinking. Dry flat. Easy peasy!

I made 2 pieces - a paler one for the honesty seedpod background and a darker one for the actual seed.

I added in some extra contrast of colour shading by dry felting or needle felting. I took a pinch of darker fibres, placed it where I needed to add some interest and stabbed it with the felting needle into a spongy mat until the fibres fused together...great process for stress relief!!!

I did the same with the felt to be used for the actual seed, then cut out the seed shape.

I then started to bring some texture to the seed by putting a running stitch a centimetre in from the edge and gently ruching to pouf it out a bit.

Here it is against the background felt - just checking it wasn't too pouffed and that it still sat correctly in the shaded area.

I continued to embellish the seed with embroidery and beading to bring it to life. The beading was inspired by looking at the seed under a magnifying glass - the surface of the seed is actually covered in tiny bumps that look like beads.

Once I had finished the embroidery and beading embellishments, I added a little wadding to keep the seed pouffed and needle felted the 2 pieces together.

Overall the process was much easier than I had expected, and I will definitely make more felt, however I think I could have been braver with my colours when doing the wet felting as then the additional needle felting may not have been necessary. I would also add more embroidery.

I am quite pleased with the results - you wouldn't necessarily look at it and think 'oh, that's an honesty seed', but it is a thing of beauty - the pinky beige and indigo blue are very calming together and the beading adds a touch of luxury and glamour. If it were done as a full honesty seed head, attached to a circular wire frame and with 3 or 4 seeds, I can see it being a successful piece.