There's been a lot going on in my personal life recently.. I haven't done much felting, and as you know I've been very inactive online. I am determined to try and get my life back on track, part of that is blogging again. I typed this post ages ago (3 months ago today in fact)! But didn't have photo's of this finished article so held off posting it. Well, I took photos - finally - yesterday :)
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As I mentioned a few weeks back (ahem back in April), I'm determined to reduce the amount of 'stuff' stored in my house.. some serious de-stashing is in order! I have 3 big plastic boxes full of lovely colourfully dyed Icelandic batts from Alafoss in Iceland. This is my slipper/boot making stash - Icelandic is easy to work with and once thoroughly felted is very hard wearing. I have decided not to make boots / slippers to sell anymore (happy to teach instead). SO it's time to use up as much as possible :)
This is not a hardship :) For the last 18 months I have been intending to felt a rug for my side of the bed.. just never finding the time. Plus we will be replacing my HUGE work table with a smaller dining table soon.. and I want to get my rug made while I have a big workspace!
Simple design.. lots of brightly coloured blocks.
To make it a little less jarring to the eye I laid down a base of white fibre first (used white English 56's from World of Wool, since I had no Icelandic white left). This should migrate through and soften the colours a little.
Edges folded over..
Putting my new palm washer board to good use working out wrinkles..
Using my ridged stick on front and back.
I always feel the ridged rolling stick helps to
tighten thick, hard felt up and flatten it out :)
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| The finished rug |
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| Photographed after 3 months use next to our bed - where there just isn't room for a nice photo unfortunately :) |
5 comments:
Ahhhh that was a lot of hard work
(know that, been there ...)
And it (still) looks good ;-)
Fabulous colours Deborah! Thinking of you Gill xx
What a beautiful rug! A lot of hard work though - you must have built up some muscles during that felting and fulling.
Are you a little nervous of getting rid of your large table?
Thanks Els & Gill, Lyn & Annie :) xxxx
Gill thinking about you too, we must meet up for a cuppa again!
Lyn & Annie, the big table has gone now.. I was very nervous about it going.. and I really do miss having it! But we are thinking of moving house so I want things to look 'right' for valuers and prospective buyers.. so my humungous table which totally dominated the dining room really had to go :( I've done a lot of de-stashing over the past few months and we have managed to HIDE all the rest of my stuff :) The spare bedroom which was chock full of lidded plastic boxes now has bedroom furniture (which feels quite bizarre); an ottoman bed holds all my wool fibre, a wardrobe contains all my finished felt and a chest of drawers is full of smaller tools and supplies. Plus Gary built me a lovely big cupboard on the landing, which is full to the top. Oh and I have 2 boxes under our bed :) It would be nice if we found a home with room for a studio.. where I can have a big table again and supplies out in plain sight to be found quickly etc. Alternatively when things settle with my parents I'll look for a studio to rent.. but that's not in the foreseeable future.
So I'm being (mostly) positive about this slightly awkward stage and trying to only notice the nice neat spare bedroom, and nice furniture in the dining room etc.:) and trying not to want to felt big things or worry about the awkwardness of having to protect a wooden table top from too much water :S 'Things WILL get better, they will, they will' - and she clicks her heels together three times :)
You are right about having the place looking 'correct' for potential buyers. Felting requires the house to be turned into a giant studio doesn't it? And that could easily put people off.
Sometimes things turn out better than you expect and when you're settled after your move, you may have better felting conditions than before - fingers crossed.
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