A Felt Collaboration

underatopazsky

Jun 26

At the end of my two days at the Artisan Market at The Collection two weeks ago, my lovely neighbour, Lisa, gave me a couple of pieces of hand made felt she had left over from some wet felted vessels, in case I could do anything with them.

I certainly could! I decided to cut the pink piece into a front and back for a mandala brooch and the larger more orangey piece into an abstract shape for a barrette.

I used a variety of oddments for the mandala brooch, starting with a vintage bead cap and bead in the centre of a brass connector from a broken necklace. I added a second round with some more vintage bead caps, seed beads and some little springs which I salvaged from broken earhooks.

I did wonder whether to add a further round but I wanted to show off the felt rather than obscure it, so I stopped there and joined the front to the back (adding a circle of pelmet vilene inside for strength) with a simple beaded blanket stitch.

I've not had chance to do anything further with the barrette but I'm thinking of doing couching with some decorative chains... Another fun collaboration and I have a decent sized scrap left over which I can use for other things and some trimmings which I'll wet felt into some dreadlocks. Nothing goes to waste.

I stitched the ring of leaves for another cauliflower in the block of three I'm planning for the stumpwork garden and while I was doing that I decided to take the French knots out of the one I'd already done. They were not only too white, but more importantly, too flat and even. I need to find a more suitable weight thread to stitch them back in.