Since I first started felting I have always been attracted to the organic quality of wool, the beautiful locks that hang off the sheep. Until now I have not been able to work with raw wool or "fleece in the grease" since I didn't have the space nor the resources.
A couple of days ago a friend let me come and pick through her raw Icelandic wool, I was able to get white, black and a beautiful honey brown. And so my adventure started!
I was inspired by http://woollove-functional-fiberart.blogspot.com/ she has made lovely rugs and posted some nice step by step tutorials.
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| Here is the fleece all laid out. I put the tips side down (The tips meaning the part that is furthest from the sheep). What I did was separate the "good" pieces and sort of bunched them together. I did this with all the colors and tried to place them in a very random organic shape. At this point I believe it measured around 25X33 inches. |
A close up of the beautiful wool
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| Then I added two layers of a light brown colored rovings, then two more layers of black. All Merino. The final step was to lay some cotton gauze over it to stabilize it. Again, I followed the steps given at http://woollove-functional-fiberart.blogspot.com/ |
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| Now it was time for the soapy water. I did not realize just HOW much water I needed. I think I filled up that bowl 5 or 6 times. It was messy and very, very dirty. Dirty water seemed to be everywhere. Finally, it was wet enough and compressed down to what you see in the next photo. |
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I placed plastic on top of the piece and rubbed. I rubbed for a really long time. After I rubbed for what seemed like forever, I took my sander and sanded... again, for a really long time. Then I rolled. After rolling.. more rubbing! I started the felting process around 12pm, and did not finish until 7pm. That was just the felting part, I had laid everything out the day before.
It took a very long time, but I had so much fun doing it. There is something primal about working with raw wool. |
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| And the finished product! I absolutely adore it. It is smaller than I had envisioned initially, but I did not have enough wool to make it any bigger. I still think it's great though, and I am incredibly inspired to do more! |
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| Measures about 21X30 inches ( it did not shrink very much!). |
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| Hung up with thumb tacks.. I just wanted to get a feel for what it would look like as a wall hanging. I have many ideas for new wall hanging pieces! |
Over all, even though it was incredibly messy, I had a wonderful experience. I loved every minute of it. I cannot wait until it gets warmer.. because I will definitely be doing this outside!
