Sunday, December 12

international day of felt

ok, so, better late than never right ... ?

i'm a 'little' behind in posting these but hopefully it'll be a welcome relief from all of the snowy scenes i've been putting up recently!

in case you haven't come across IDF before, here's a handy link that'll tell you all about it, so you can get involved for 1st october, next year: felt united

i really love this coming together of feltmakers from around the world and also the creativity that it inspires. the first year i took part, i met angela who was organising a felt trail in ilkley and the felt mobile i made was something i wouldn't normally have attempted and became one of my favourite pieces.

this year i wanted to try something new so one of the things i made, i hung in the local forest, right on the edge of a walking path so that people who wouldn't normally encounter felt would have the chance to see something a little different. i was a bit nervous about it, what if someone saw me putting it up and told me off?! what if people didn't like it and ripped it down?! i was really relieved and quite surprised when i went back to take it down two weeks later to find it, not only still in place, but it looked like a few of the pieces had become detached and folk had carefully put them back in place :) i used velcro at one end of each strip to wrap it around the branch so as not to damage the tree, but it possibly wasn't strong enough for the perthshire weather!

anyway, enough blethering, here's the pics ...

laying out ... the blue
... the yellow
... the green
these interlocking foam tiles have been great - saves my feet when standing and my knees when kneeling (didn't have a big enough table for this size of felt!) but one word of caution - if they get a little wet they get exceptionally slippy against a laminate floor so that any attempt to stand on them results in lots of arm flailing, squealing, sploshing about of water and results in a fit of giggles when you realise how funny you must have looked as you did the 'must retain my balance' dance! not dignified :)

after much rubbing comes much rolling
ready for cutting
all cut and ready to be shaped and washed
i also made some felt balls to hang in our new gage tree
and some hollow ones that i cut to reveal different layers
but this was my favourite piece
roll on next year, when the colour theme is red, purple and blue!

2 comments:

Heather Woollove said...

Oh, how perfect!! I was a bit wimpy with my own Felt United piece and displayed it in my front yard where no one could yell at me. Perhaps, I'll be braver next year!! :)

Tracy Markey said...

thank you :)

and displaying your work in your front yard isn't wimping out at all.

i must admit it was very scary and i did kind of run away when i thought someone was coming in case i got into trouble. but i'm so glad i did it! who knows what next year's celebration will encourage us both to do :)