Wednesday 21 October 2015

Lovely Fungi :)

At the start of October I was still full of enthusiasm and energy for felting!  And since September was all about animals I felt like carrying on being inspired by nature.. this time flora rather than fauna :)

I found images of the most beautiful fungi on Pinterest..

Turkey tail fungus (thank you Kerry for the name :)
I love the colours, pretty bands and rounded ruffling shape..
I've made berets with ruffles on in the past.. and a few years ago made cushion covers shaped like flowers with ruffling petals.  I decided to try a scarf using the same technique for ruffles as I had in the past..
Laid out fibre layers separated by bubble wrap 
(apart from a thin strip along one long edge
- where I wanted the layers to be joined)
Wetted and carefully rubbed
After lots of rubbing and rolling.. when it was holding together well.
Using my painters tray 'washer board' to firm up the ruffles
After rinsing and a gentle spin I stretched and formed the ruffles
- leaving it in position to dry
Unfortunately I had to take the photo myself and it isn't very good -
But you get the idea :)
Really happy with the shape and how the ruffles turned out.. and I like the colour.  It doesn't have the coloured band effect of the fungus though, my fibre colours went together too well for that; they've blended into a subtle variegation from light to dark.. which is fine - but next time I was a bit braver :)

5 comments:

Teri Berry said...

Wow, the fungus is amazing, I am seeing lots of fungi lately but nothing as colourful as yours. The scarf is lovely too

Kerry O'Gorman said...

Gorgeous results! I'm not sure of the latin name but we call those fungi Turkey Tails. They come in many shades of brown too.

FeltersJourney said...

Yes, I've seen quite a few too Teri - though nothing this colourful round here either x

Thank you Kerry - I like that name, how appropriate :) I'll add it in.. thank you! I found pics them in gorgeous browns and oranges too - they're soooo pretty x

alison gartner said...

How many layers were there?

FeltersJourney said...

Hi Alison, there are 3 layers of ruffles. Each ruffle is made up of 3 Very fine fibre layers - with all fibre running in the same direction to allow it to stretch and form the frills :)