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Wavy Lines (felt card) (b.6 June 2009)


This was the companion felt picture I designed at the same time as Abstract Blue - both cards were for my mother and her sister (they were 65 and 70 respectively on consecutive days, and my aunt's 70th birthday was celebrated in style in a stately home hired for the week near St Andrews, Fife).

For this card, I used white merino wool as a background, and then used hand-dyed Wensleydale wool fibres (wonderfully curly wool!) to create separate strands. I needle-felted these strands to the backing, with a smoke-like effect. This time I remembered to let the felt dry fully before attaching it to a card blank with aperture (unlike the Abstract Blue, which I had to keep weighed down under a heavy book for 24 hours to straighten up the wrinkles caused by dampness).

After designing this card, I wondered about using a combination of dry and wet felting to achieve interesting effects. I tried a sample piece where I split some brown wool and dry felted each strand to a backing, creating a rather convincing tree trunk. This is a technique I will explore further.

Abstract Blue (felt card) (b.5 June 2009)

This was one of my first real attempts at making a felt picture. I love the organic nature of the shapes which were creating very simply using soap, hot water and a bit of rubbing!

This is not creating hard-wearing felt, I'm glad to say - no rolling it back and forwards several hundred times. I was able to create this by spraying the wool design lightly with water, and then covering it with bubble wrap and rubbing it gently to mat the fibres, and then finishing the job by hand. Once the felt was nearly dry, I needle-felted some of the stray strands to get better definition in the design, and to keep it holding together better. Using similar shades has created a depth to the design, which reminds me of the aurora borealis.