Category Archives: wet felt

Surgical Interventions on a Nudibranch

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It’s hard to believe but I started making this felted mailbox cover nearly 2 years ago. This is what it looked like in March 2023 before I started adding the gills and rhinophores (horns at the front) were added.

I took it to the Fun Felters retreat that March where we collectively stretched it over the commercial mailbox (I had fulled it too far so it took a LOT of pulling and stretching to get onto the box). It took 5 of us, all pulling on a different section to get it all the way on.

Sadly I was too busy fighting the damp nudi to take any photos but I am sure we must have looked sight 🙂

After working and shaping it I wasn’t happy with the rhinophores so I wrapped some garden wire around them and then Mr TB pointed out that they looked a lot like the red flag. Urgh, I hated to admit it but he was right, even with them pointed down they could still be mistaken for a flag by a short-sighted postie 🙁

Nudibranch mail box pre-surgery

I already knew some surgery would be needed to make the flag accessible (it was trapped under the felt) so the rhinophores were amputated at the same time – ouch!

After the rhinophores were carefully removed (leaving nasty purple wounds) an incision was made over the flag. I love how you can clearly see the layers of wool and fabric across the cut edge.

The flag was extracted and the wound closed with sutures…

Before massaging to heal the wound and minimise scarring.

Here she is, fully recovered and drying in the Auckland sunshine 🙂 Waiting for a new post to be installed that she can perch on.

No animals, not even humans, were harmed in the making of this mail box 🙂

Adding Dimension

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This quarter, the FFS challenge is to add dimension to our felt, on the face of it I should find this challenge easy, almost everything I make is 3D in nature but that rather seems to defeat the purpose, after all, surely a challenge should be just that! 🙂

Last weekend I had a mini epiphany; I really like the effect of shibori felt like the brooch below but using the “tie in a stone/button/marble technique” is not very practical when you are creating a 3D object over a resist as you need extra felt to stretch over the inclusions and it invariably makes the surrounding felt uneven too. I woke up on Sunday morning and my first thought was to create these cup shapes separately and then attach them to the main piece of felt. Is it really sad that I am now dreaming about felt?

This was the piece made with the separate resists. It was very slow work making these 7 little cups and I’m not sure I will use this method a lot but it was interesting to try and I’m happy with the result.

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This box is quite large, just shy of a foot square and 5 inches tall.

I wanted to make a small bowl inspired by this pine cone, it started out as a bowl but I clearly wasn’t concentrating while laying out the flaps and spikes so it became a pod instead… 🙂

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Finally, I started working on a new vest top that I have been thinking about since attending a dress-making course with Cristina Pacciani at the beginning of July, it still needs some shaping in the back and around the collar but you can already see all the texture from the silk and felt ropes laid under the silk. Originally I was going to make this in royal blue chiffon but then decided white habouti would better showcase the different textures.

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What are you planning for the 3rd quarter challenge?