My Heart's Desire

Ever since I was a little girl, I've wanted to be an artist. It truly was my heart's desire and I wasted many years thinking it could never be so. Recently, while talking with an artist friend, I was telling her about the intense time I had just gone through,making fiber art pictures for a show I was about to be part of. For several weeks I had immersed myself in making art and it was exhilarating. The show was wonderful, I sold some pictures, and it felt good to have accomplished a goal. 

As I spoke with my friend, I had one of those "aha!" moments we all have now and then. It dawned on me that this art-making, this drawing, this designing, this sewing, this creating is my passion. I knew that I loved it, but I suddenly realized what a gift it is to have such an avid interest that brings so much pleasure, right at my fingertips. So that must mean, I am after all, an artist. Aha!!

This is one of the pieces I had in the show. It has a wet felted and needle felted background.

I used needle felting and hand embroidery, plus a few beads, for embellishment.

I then sewed it on to white linen, edged the picture with some yarn trim,

and stretched it over a piece of mat board and backed it with felt.

I have a few more pictures from the exhibit to share later. Meanwhile, 

thanks for being patient with my long absences from this blog, and thank you for stopping by!

Have a wonderful week! 

Felting, and a Fall

Recently I did some wet felting, making pieces of felt to add to my landscapes.

First I pulled apart short lengths of roving and arranged

them in criss-cross layers - like making lasagna!

I added some streaks of other colors,

 soapy water and a piece of netting, 

then mashed and kneaded and rolled the roving, rinsed it in water,

let it dry and came out with a nice thick piece of felt. To this I can add more color

with needle felting and tear it apart as accents for a couple of landscapes. I just love 

the irregular edges, which I'll put to good use!

My other piece of news is that I fell this past week, tripping as I walked along

on a cement sidewalk, landing with a resounding thud of head against cement.

This is a "nice" selfie taken after a 4 hour stay in a hospital emergency room, with 

CT scans and an Xray of my wrist. No broken bones, thank goodness.

The following days brought 2 black eyes and much bruising as things developed. I won't share those pictures with you. I feel fortunate to have come out of this with not-too-serious injuries. I'm keeping a low profile and working on my artwork for the show I'll be part of, which is now a month away. I hope to share some finished work with you soon.

Have a great week!

A Bit of Wet Felting

Today was an extremely wet and gloomy day, but I had a project in mind

to lift the gloom! My friend Andrea has been working on some beautiful

wet felting experiments and has inspired me to do the same.

I have a large stash of wool roving in many colors, but have so far

used it only for needle felting. Today I wanted to try wet felting.

I decided to do a small piece, and I started with a shallow tray, lined 

with bubble wrap. I pulled out strands of the roving and arranged and

layered them on the bubble wrap. It felt like I was making lasagna!

I kept my design simple and used only three colors, 

criss-crossing some colors over the others.

I then covered the roving with some lightweight screening material.

Next time I do this I'll use tulle or nylon curtain fabric.

I sprinkled a little soapy water over the screening.

I used a couple of DIY tools to bond the layers. One was a wood 

foot massager I had on hand, the other a disc of wood from the craft

store, with flat-backed glass marbles hot-glued on.

The second tool worked best, and I rubbed it over the surface for about 

ten minutes, checking once in a while to see whether the wool was felting.

Finally, I removed the screening and the bubble wrap, 

rinsed it and laid it out on a towel.

I then made a second, smaller landscape background in the same way

My next felted pieces will probably be thicker, but for now I'm happy.

I'd like to add beading and embroidery to these. We'll see what develops!!

I'll end by saying, to my American friends, 

Happy Independence Day!!

And to all readers who have stopped by today,

Thank You for Visiting!!