New look

For my regular reader you might have noticed that this blog has undergone a bit of a change this week. I have dropped the standard template and tried to go for a customized look. This sounds quite easy but was in fact a difficult balancing act between of picture of felt size and the background. Try as I might I could not get one photo big enough in physical size yet small enough in computer storage size to be the background. I passed through a very small tiled phase for the observant amongst you but that was just too busy. So maybe as you see it now it an acceptable compromise. What do you think?

There is one other new feature. Being a follower of my blog has defeated a number of potential readers due to its complexity. There is now a solution. In the top right had box you can put your email address and then you wont miss any installments in my felting journey of discovery. Please try it.

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Rug Design

I have to make a rug , a small rug . After some thought I decided I would use an abandoned collage as the inspiration, I wanted something new , but also something traditional .

I took the design and photoshopped it !. First I made a mirror image then I altered its colours. The colours had to be something that would stand out of the whitish mule background. This is so great to do in photoshop!. Then I spaced it out and gave it a simple border.

Oh yes and I removed one element of the collage with the magic rubber , it's still just visible.

Then my skills at photoshop , or maybe my patience ran out . I wanted a kind of traditional edge , which I decided that I could more easily draw by hand than puzzle over drawing in photoshop.

So here is the hybrid, scrappy looking design.

and here are all the lovely fibres waiting for me, sitting on my scaled up design.

The white fibre is my very special hand scoured and carded mule from woolfest last year. The colours , amethyst, hot pink , conifer and elderberry are merinos from World of Wool. Some already made into prefelts . Ready to felt but......

My instructions say wait for a sunny warm day to make the rug . Here we are in the coldest March in 50 years in the Netherlands so now I will just have to a wait until the weather warms up.

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From one thing to another

I am working up to making carpets , well not really , maybe a rug. If I had some friends , which as I am a distance learner , I don't, I would be. It is also not true that I have no friends. I have another distance learning friend, Paula , but she can't physically help me make a rug. So I am actually working up to making a very small, but rug thickness prayer mat.

As part one of this process I had to make a sampler , using the pattern techniques that would be incorporated into a rug. I have been very involved in the natural colours of Shetland for the last few weeks , as I have slowly stitched by Shyrdak .

It's actually nearly done and I am pleased with it , but its very natural.

So for my sampler , no brown , no natural colours. But still somehow had to be within the bounds of my theme of river edges. So I thought about this picture which I took one beautiful sunny day last May . Lots of lines , shapes but not a lot of colour.

Then I remember a beautiful photograph from Joe Cornish , from Arklet water. Gorgeous colours. Published in his book 'First Light'

Why not imagine these colours , and the shapes from my photo ? Mix and match. So I went a bit wild and made a piece mixing these two ideas together and I think it works well. Here is a small piece of it.

Now I just need to get my prayer mat ideas worked out.

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