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.
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I had never heard this poem before but it is brilliant, so beautifully written it made me grin from ear to ear. I can easily see how it captured your imagination, there are just so many directions this could go in. Can't wait to see how this piece develops. Do you think it will become a series of felt pieces?
ReplyDeleteHi Teri. Yes it's a lovely poem. It will be a series , a small one . I expect my second grandchild in September , so I am already thinking about a second piece , perhaps with the hat in this time. !!!
ReplyDeleteWow, that will be a big wall hanging !
ReplyDelete(for a childrens room perhaps ?)
Mmmm looks like a book with a lot of memories !