Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing a new studio game…..15 minute felt projects. Just once a week, as an opportunity to approach design work with a blank mental slate, no commitments to outcome and sense of fun experimentation. This is actually the third of these projects…..the mountain vessel….
It’s so easy to head out the studio with the timer set at 15 minutes and just see what happens. It’s allows a simple opening for some spontaneous creating. This morning I had mountains in mind….and shadows….and laid out a circle of two layers of Norwegian wool. Problem number 1 in meeting the 15 minute felt deadline (Norwegian wool is not a quick felter!)! Problem number 2 was that I made my surface too large to complete in such a short time…..
Then I used some strips of resist material I had handy and started to alternate layers of resist, with triangles of merino prefelt. These were not pre-cut- just quickly cut randomly and added to the surface.
Wetted out and ready to felt…This is the point that I started to realize my folly in wool selection and size……
I did get the piece designed, laid out, wetted out, rolled and hand rubbed….and then my timer went off! Okay…So a little ambitious…but it is an expansion activity not a limiting one, so I gave myself another 15 minutes to finish up….since the purpose is to have a freeform felting session, but also to not let it take over the whole morning/day/week!
At 30 minutes I rinsed well and shaped the mountain spines….
Then shaped into a vessel form using a steam iron…..and dried in the morning sun on a pedestal in my studio window….all morning it made me happy to look over at the finished form…
A great creative practise and one I plan to continue over the summer…..but with the expanded, but still limited timeframe of the 30 minute felt project!
Warm wishes,
Fiona
nice idea…and a very cool result!
Thanks, Anu! So keen to make some more, but other feltwork finishing on the agenda today. Looking forward to doing it again next week though!
How fun! Thank you for sharing.
Nice explanation of your process!
Cami Smith
Thanks Cami! Stopping to take pics might not have helped my deadline….Such a fun project! I want to do another today, but am trying to resist and keep it a weekly treat! Thank you for sharing this!
I haven't felted for a very long time and I am enjoying this new 'challenge' that you have set up for yourself … very interesting !
Thanks so much! I think this would be a fun exercise for any medium.
Fiona ! Congratulations ! this is fun !!!!!
Even if you had to set the timer once again
What a lovely baby-dragon dish !!!
(a fine touch : those stones 😉 !)
Thanks Els! The first two proejcts did get done in 15 minutes, but 30 is so much more reasonable, and still short enough to make happen regularly!
Love the idea of a baby dragon dish! The stones were a special gift from New Zealand, brought to me by my fabulous cousin, Erica Duthie. I have a treasured bag of small stones with special markings on them-a little bit of NZ! xoFiona