Textiles and Tea, and other desperate situations

This was Tuesday, and as you'll see, led me right off into an additional train of thought, adding to the Penn Station of my mind..lead us not into Penn Station..

This artist works in nuno felting. It's sheet felting where you take roving and open weave fabric and using soap and friction, bond them permanently to create a new fabric. It's good for hangings, clothing, any fabric application. Very labor intensive, very beautiful.

She also creates three dimensional felted sculptures, some enormous, all wonderful. And she continually credits other feltmakers with influencing and collaborating with her. Generous artist. She sells wearable and useful pieces, like these:

Here's a photograph showing nature as the subject of this vessel.

A massive 8' × 5' piece, about the work of leaving the cocoon. About any difficult, long task, including everyday life.

She loves hats, as you see, and sells them Scarves, too, created nuno style

This is faery-like, a wearable sculpture.

Much more on her website, address in the introductory picture.

So really, after watching this for an hour, what's a person to do? 

I've done felting before, ranging from shrinking wool sweaters for slipper and hat fabric, to felting soap, and since I had roving and a figure in progress, obviously, despite it being late at night, I was swept up. A Helpless Prawn of Fate yet again.

This is what happened. Aluminum bowl, silk roving, bubble wrap, meat tenderizer

look

Friction, pounding, cold water and soap, boiling water to shock the fibers

Molded on an aluminum bowl, approximately my hat size for comparison

Now dry, and because a lot of it's silk roving, delicate, partially felted. Silk doesn't feit much, okay for the figure, maybe a wig, TBD. 

If I'd wanted a tougher piece, wearable for me,  I'd have incorporated wool roving. But this delicate shape was the idea.

At some point I may make myself a hat, wool roving with strands of other fibers for interest. And I'm also thinking of sheet felting for that skirt I was thinking about weaving. Two panels of felt, knitted side panels, same roving, spun for knitting. 

What look like wild tangents often are just a disguised continuation of one train of thought. A long, varied, one.

admittedly. A lot of cargo.

Anyway, check out Dawn Edwards' website, she's worth studying.