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Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Fourth Quarter Challenge

As some of you may know, the ladies of Felting and Fibre Studio post a felting challenge each quarter. For this quarter the challenge is to create something with an autumn theme. I am definitely inspired by the colours of the trees at the moment, just driving to work I want to say ooh and ahh at all the beautiful colours. I am so lucky to have a drive that takes me through deciduous woodlands and along tree lined roads.

I have to admit that I am not at all inspired by Zed's suggestion that autumn evokes thoughts of damp and decay! Yuck!! I will stick to the lovely autumnal colours of the trees :)

Here is my autumn leaf-inspired shawl. It is constructed from rainbow dyed cotton scrim with a thin layer of merino top laid out in different colours with streaks of yellow bamboo fibre as an accent colour and to give some sheen. To this I added about 40 leaf shapes cut out of prefelt and embellished with yarns that I needle-felted to represent the veins on the leaves.


On the reverse I laid out a similar pattern of merino tops and bamboo fibre but without the leaves that took soooo long to cut out and needle-felt with their wool veins.


All of this was wet felted together and I love the result. The yellow bamboo has worked really well and adding a thin layer of wool to both sides of the cotton scrim gives it a lovely soft and warm feel while being thin enough to still drape beautifully.

Is it perverse of me to like the reverse side (without the leaves) better than the front?!!

6 comments:

  1. This is a beautiful 'autumn' shawl and I can't make up my mind whether I like the reverse or the right side most because they're both attractive. (The leaves must have taken you ages to do!)

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    1. Thank you Rosie. Yes, I'm afraid the leaves took quite a few evenings in front of the TV annoying Mr TB with the sound of needle-felting the veins into place. We all must suffer for my art :)

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  2. I love it - both sides are wonderful. I sometimes find that I like abstract better than representational so I understand your feelings about liking the abstract side better than the leaves.

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    1. Thank you. I can't even explain why I like the reverse side more, I know I "should" like the front simply because of all the hours it took to create.

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  3. Great shawl. It fits our theme so well.

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    1. Thank you, it helps that it was such an inspiring challenge :o)

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