The felted picture

Last time I left off not too happy with my design and waiting for my felting needles to arrive in the post. In the meantime I completely changed the design of this piece, going for more fun elements and bolder colors. This fits a lot better in a boy's room. I got the felting needles, but my problems didn't end there. As it turned out, the felting didn't go very well because the holder that the needles were in, didn't allow them to penetrate deep enough through the layers of wool to be effective. So while I was punching that thing ever so intensely, the felting effect was very light and superficial:

Thinking at first that the needles weren't good, I discovered the cutest little store here in The Hague called Sari, full of Waldorfy crafts and fantasies. With Christmas weekend and all I didn't feel like ordering from a web shop. There I got new needles, but not a new holder as I wasn't aware yet, that that was the problem.  Anyways, now I'm working on this thing with a single needle in my bare hand, which works, but takes forever. I'm almost ready for the wet felting stage but still need to work on a few thin patches and some more detailing. This is how far I got last night:

woollies

My son has the cutest woolly slippers from Vancouver (a gift from a friend), but he's already worn through them twice and now they're definitely too small, his toe is poking out the front. I was rather dissappointed by the selection of slippers I found in the stores. They often have a hard sole or are made of synthetic materials. Or they only come in tiny baby sizes. I had a piece of leather from my dad, and some beautifully died wool from the same woman who makes the slippers, so I decided to try and replicate them:

The first attempt ( I hadn't made a cuff yet) turned out really cute but too small...

Felting project

I've been working on a felted picture for my son's room. I was inspired by Robin Wiltse, a wonderful artist I met while visiting a friend in Kaslo, B.C., Canada. She creates beautiful pictures that look like paintings, but they are made of felted wool. The incredible detail is achieved by pinning down the colors with the needle felting method, lightly fixing things in place, before it is wet felted. I still have two huge travel bags full of felting wool in storage and have been meaning to make something woolly for a while. I finally got around to digging through my shed and bringing the supplies upstairs. I wanted to make a sunny warm wall hanging. It started like this:

Inspiration

Laying down a base

Delft blue

So you may be familiar with the Delft Blue pottery. Recently I was told that the blue they use, originally comes from Turkey. As do several other Dutch icons, such as the tulip. Anyways, I made a cute little choker with dotted beads inspired by the perfect combination of white and blue:

focals

 two views of the same bead:

Life's a beach...

I'm thrilled with my latest bead! I made some similar beads a whole long while ago when i first started this blog, and decided to revisit this style. The silverglass on a black base turned magnificently blue and the swirls make me think of waves at the beach. It's beautiful just on it's own as a pendant. I hope you like it:

 

And here's a pretty big hole bead with some silverglass and silvered ivory in it:

And some more beads...

 I made these two chearful beads in a very short session yesterday afternoon:

And these are some other recent beads that I hadn't fotographed yet.
Fossil beach:

Smokey green:

And a neat silverglass bead in blues with an off-center hole so that it doesn't turn around.

Wishful thinking...

Springy beads:

A selection

Here are a few rather random beads I've made lately and a few older ones too. The marks on the ruler indicate millimeters for an indication of the size.

pretty purples

I've finally had myself a little torching session again...

just some nice pictures

you need to klik on this last image to see these beads properly, it just doesn't look right in the small format.