Quangle Wangle - final details

I think that when I started this piece I had realised how much work was involved in the finishing I might of adopted a different strategy. It probably took 10 times as long to add all the finalizing touches as it did to felt the piece - and I don't even like stitching.

Of course most animals required their eyes to be added that was not really where the time went it was in those animals who required there whole bodies to be embellished.

Here is the blue baboon undergoing a whole body hair removal process as my original attempt at his fur with felted in silk threads looked terrible. Here he is after his make over. Better and I love his orange flute.

The frog just required some definition of his limbs on top of his silky skin.

The orient calf , a famboyant character required his face and some jewel like details adding.

 

He also had a small ribbon used at the wedding ceremony of Laura and Michael added to his plaited tail.

I like the golden touches on the golden grouse. Above are the skinny legs of the stork. Also seen here the Fimble fowl with the corkscrew leg , my favorite character from the whole story.

The finished piece.

I am very proud of it and I hope Abigail Grace Van Gordon will learn to love it and it's story.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Quangle wangle felting

Ready to go now after all the testing and preparations.

The crumpetty leaves.

The blue baboon without his flute and the bisky bat.

The orient calf, the golden grouse and the pobble who has no toes, at this point not even any legs!

 

The owl and the artery squash , both completly bald and the dong with the luminous nose.

All placed ontop of a large piece of prefelt with loops on the reverse side for hanging purposes covered in 4 layers of laid out carded merino and silk. I used the prefelt first , to give a flatter finish.

The piece part way through felting , unfortunately the sunlight on my felting table makes for not such a good photograph , but you can make out the stork and the owl, and the pobble.

 

The completed felted piece drying on my washing line. Currently there are 16 animals, some still needing lots of stitching to finish them off. The bee is yet to be added , as I decided it was too small to felt.

Next step adding the details .

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Quangle wangle preparations

When my sister knew I was to become a grandmother , she suggested to me that I should make a sampler . The thought of making a cross stitch sampler was not very appealing to me , but I thought perhaps I could maybe make something from felt. But what ? I thought of a tree of life ;Noah's ark; the owl and the pussy cat ; but none of them caught my imagination .

Then I remembered the poem of The Quangle Wangle's hat , by Edward Lear. This poem was a favorite bedtime story for me and my two girls when they were very little. We had a copy illustrated by Helen Oxenbury which sadly is long out if print but it is available second hand.

 

The quangle wangle lives in a crumpetty tree and his enormous beaver hat , decorated with ribbons and bibbons, bells, buttons, loops and lace can be seen for miles. But he is very lonely and first Mr & Mrs canary ask if they can build a nest on his hat . Then a series of other magical animals join them living on the beaver hat .

It ends as follows:

And the Quangle Wangle said

To himself on the crumpetty Tree,

"When all these creatures move

What a wonderful noise there'll be !"

And at night by the light of the Mulberry Moon

They danced to the flute of the Blue Baboon

On the broad green leaves of the Crumpetty Tree,

And all were as happy as happy could be, with the Quangle Wangle Quee

 

So I had my sampler theme. I decided to make a wall hanging depicting not the Quangle Wangle or his hat but the moon dance.

First. I did some testing on how to make the crumpetty leaves , tree branches and edging options for my animals. Black edges were out , but the blue ones are OK.

Then I tested the prefelt and fibres for the various animals. There are 17 in total, some will just be felted and some embroidered.

 

This looks totally uninspiring , looking back. But critical really as you can't undo felt.

And I carded the sky , blues and purple merino with white silk fibres for the silvery light.

Next time. Felting the piece.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

What is the right size ?

I recently saw some felted baby boottees with crochet tops. I thought I'd adopt the idea with a twist and convert a pair I made a while ago into having knitted tops, I used variegated sock wool for the knitting. It worked well. But I wondered about the size , they seemed a little large.

I have a knitting friend, Ria , who has knitted more than 300 pairs of new born baby boottees, since 2006. All embroidered with the name of the baby. What a lovely thing to do. Here's the comparison between the expert Ria's boottee and mine.

Clearly mine are rather on the large size.

So I thought I'd try again.

Here's a comparison of the large and small resists used for the two pairs, the smaller pair do have shorter legs to allow for the knitting.

After completion comparison. Neither the right size , I think one is too big and one to small.

 

Posted with Blogsy