DORSET YARNS: The Felt Canvas
Everyone loves merino wool for its bright colours, right? Felting pictures which look just like paintings, using colour and tone to form shapes and define boundaries? Well I still love all of that, but just of late I’ve been experimenting with a new kind of felt picture (of the illustrated kind!) I’ve come to the conclusion that felt is a wonderful canvas to draw on. And using a free machining foot on my sewing machine I can do just that.
And because it’s a local scene I’ve used local wool – fibres from the Dorset Horn sheep. The wool is needle felted, i.e is still soft and spongy enough to show off lots of texture, but supported from behind with a small piece of Vilene. I drew the design onto some Vilene Soluvlies 321 Solufleece (water soluble fabric stabiliser!!) and spent a concentrated 20 mins or so free machining all those lines, dipped the felt in some hot water and voila. Gosh, I hadn’t used dissolvable fabric since I left college – I’d forgotten how effective and magic it is, the fabric just vanished in seconds!!
I was going to make my Gold Hill felt sketch into a greeting card, but it took quite a while to do, and I doubt I’d be able to sell an A6 greeting card for £10… so I’m going to find a nice little frame for it instead….