Friday 9 September 2011

The best kind of collaboration - mother and daughter

September.. the year is turning!  Autumn is definately in the air..  Misty morning fields, bright berries on the trees, cool crisp evenings.. it shall be time for thick soups, hot chocolate and woolen socks soon!
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Well the summer holidays went by in a bit of a blur they were gone so quickly.. and I have been a bad little blogger!  Hopefully things shall be back to normal now.. the children are newly back at school - I am felting again (YAY) and this morning saw the Woolgatherers meet for the first time since July.  I should be hard at work, either working on my newest pair of boot slippers.. or making textural flat felt for a commission.. but my concience is telling me its time to blog :)  but I must be short and sweet and get back to work!
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This is not a new make but a piece from July which I didnt get round to showing you.  Rachael had drawn a picture which I fell in love with.. and immediately imagined it as a felt panel on the wall. 
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This is Rachaels trademark flower.. in year 4 they did a William Morris project and all had to design and make their own wallpaper.. this is the flower Rachael designed - she has been drawing it ever since :)
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I love this picture - its simple.. but I can almost hear the wind singing in the leaves of the tree..making the branches dance.  I thought it lent itself to freemotion machine embroidery - which has really gotten a hold of me I afraid - I'm addicted.  So one day I set about felting the picture (minus the chickens and bunnies :)
Wetted out and just started rubbing

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I used the colours of the fields by our house at that time.. apart from the flower of course (which is imaginery) - Rachael always uses these colours for it so I stayed true to her design :)
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When it was felted and dried I set to with my sewing machine & freemotion foot (which I LIKE) adding in the detail..
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From a distance
I LOVE the textures you can get adding machine embroidery to felt.. 
 the trunk and branches stand proud against the leaves.
Signed with our initials and the date :)
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I just need to mount it now! Which is where I have come to a standstill.. my embroidery frame is too small for the piece of linen fabric that I want to mount it on (it needs to be stretched before I stitch it on - then I stretch the linen over a board & stitch it in place). Im puzzling my way around it, while trying to avoid the need for a bigger frame...  and then it shall be on my wall :)
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So.. NOW I am off to do some felting before collecting the children from school
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Have a good weekend folks
xx

6 comments:

Heather Woollove said...

What a fun Mama/daughter project!! Enjoy your time felting, Deborah! Sometimes we just have to seize the day, already!! :) XXO-

ThatFuzzyFeeling said...

Lovely to see you back in blogland, hope you had a great sumer! This is beautiful :)

Ali said...

What a fantastic felty collaboration Deborah, The shape of the flower and colours are beautiful...hope its hanging up soon.
Ali

FeltersJourney said...

Thanks folks :)
I LOVE having the kids home and family time.. but its always lovely to get back into felting - I start getting fibre withdrawl symptoms..

Annie and Lyn said...

You felted and embroidered Rachael's picture beautifully. Children of Rachael's age have a talent for design that is unaffected by adult perceptions of how things should look.

FeltersJourney said...

Thanks Annie & Lyn :)
I love childrens drawings.. as you say they have such an clear and uncluttered perspective.
Im really pleased that it translated so well into felt.. got it forever now :)
x