Felting ‘flowers’ into scarves
Swirls of Merino wool flowers, ready to be felted into a scarf or two
I did a felting course on Thursday and Friday last week, so on Saturday I wanted to play around with what I learned.
I dragged out an old bag of leftover Merino bits. The bits were all mixed together and not that inspiring. A bit like when you mix too much paint and all you get is brown. I set about untangling and sorting and had a lovely time creating these ‘flowers’ above.
I am not an experienced felter yet, so thought I’d experiment with embedding them into a scarf. I didn’t know how they would take, given they were a bit worked already, just from hanging around with other bits of wool in the same bag. I placed a thin layer of wool fibres over the top of each flower before felting, just to see if they’d anchor in place.
I am delighted with the result!
Emmylou - felted scarf with 'flowers'
So delighted, in fact, I made another one straight after it, though this time I shaped the scarf around the flowers shown in the first picture.
Felicity - purple, blue and orange felted scarf with 'flowers'
New mohair crochet flower and knit scarf
Rose Red - crochet mohair scarf made of flowers and leaves
Meet Rose Red. She’s the latest in my crochet series of wearable sculptures.
I am thinking of making another like this, and felting it, now that I understand the felting process.
You can see more pictures on my etsy site, in the crochet category.
New skill learned this week – felting!
Elfi - felted grey scarf with coloured and embroidered shapes
This week I took a Yarra Valley Arts Council class at the Healesville Primary School in felting a scarf and felting a hat.
What a great time we had, laying fibres, wetting wool, rolling until we thought we could roll no more. It was much easier and much less messy than I thought.
And here’s the result: Elfi. Named after my Aunty in Augusta, Georigia. You can see more pictures on my etsy site.
Happy felting!!
Butter yellow crochet scarf with FrootieLoops
I finished this crocheted number off last night. It’s made from a butter yellow mohair/wool/acrylic blend, and has brightly coloured, dry-felted merino wool in the centre of each circle, achieving a kind of FrootieLoops effect!
I bought the wool from a local fete and dusted off my dormant crochet skills this year, which has been a lovely experience for me.
You see, I work during the week in the suburbs in a busy IT job, though moved to the country to take stock of what’s important, and change my life a bit.
On the weekend I like to sit on the deck, knitting or crocheting, defending my work from my Siamese cat Peabody who loves wool, and looking at the bird life and the mountains. I use the steady up and back of knitting & crocheting as a meditation of sorts, to rest from my weekday busyness.
So, life’s pretty good, and I now have 16 scarves in my etsy store.
Hope the creative bug is urging you on.
Three times lucky?
Last weekend I knit
enter a different state of mind to my dominant one, which is working in IT.
But so desperate am I to reach this other mindset, I’m now amassing a collection of scarves, too many for my own personal use!
I need to move them.
So, I set up a shop on etsy.com (www.handmade3777.etsy.com), a site where you can buy and sell handmade goods. It’s like a big online St Kilda Sunday Market and I fear I’ll buy more than I’ll sell.
So, that’s one avenue. No sales so far, but nice to do some social networking and learn 
more about it, and a few people have liked some of the items in my modest ’shop’.
My partner & I, when down at the local bricks and mortar outlets the other day, went into a gifty kind of place. I’m shy about flaunting my wares so he asked the assistant if the owner would be interested in looking at my scarves. She said, ’sure’ and handed us a card with a name to call.
Since then, I met a friend for lunch in Tooronga. We went into that lovely shop, Turner and Lane on Malvern Road, and my friend, knowing the stage-fright I would exhibit if I had to ask, asked the lady in the shop if the owners were interested in viewing some of my winter wares. I now have another card, with another name to call.
Buoyed by how nice these people were, I phoned a favourite local shop, Morris Brown in Healesville. I spoke to one of the two partners and she has agreed to take a look.
Perhaps three times lucky? I’ll let you know how I get on.
