Felted vessel with Leaves

 

Workshops are a fantastic way to learn new techniques and to share new ideas and innovation. I generally am the first to sign up for a workshop. But this time the workshop date was smack bang when we were supposed to be on holidays so reluctantly I had to "pass".

Then Covid raised its ugly head, the dates were changed (and our holiday was cancelled). I meant to enquire if there were any spaces left - but forgot and as the workshop date drew close I realised I'd missed my opportunity to attend a workshop by well known felt vessel maker Denise Lithgow.

Just 36 hours before the workshop was due an urgent email was sent from the club advising that a couple of spots were vacant. I hurriedly arranged payment and then received the list of materials.

500gms of 22 micron wool! Heavens! I had plenty of 22m wool but not yet dyed. Too late to dye anything so I decided that my vessel would have to be "au natural". That week I had prefelted lots of bits of scrappy wool to undertake Fiona Duthie's fibre sketch project so I decided that would have to do for embellishment.

The vessels I've made before were quite small and round so I decided I waned a bit of height. I had a design in mind and with Denise's assistance I sketched up a pattern. My first attempt had a flat bottom but Denise suggested that a rounded base would work better.

Denise advised to wet it out with warm water and  without soap after each round of laying out a perpendicular design of four layers on a resist. Once it was compressed using hands and bubble wrap it was time to add the embellishment.

I was hoping to achieve some wool migration of red and black through my white background so I added an initial layer of red and black around the top of the vessel.

I played around with the prefelts for quite awhile before deciding on a similar design front and back.

I roughed up the prefelts with a cat comb and rubbed them all with olive oil soap before adding them to the vessel.

Finally with the assistance of a nylon curtain and more olive oil soap the felting process commenced. Denise's technique was new to me. Rubbing the sides of the vessel between both hands to push the wool away from the edge of the resist to prevent a groove forming.

Once that was complete, felting was continued using painters plastic and more olive oil soap. I liked this technique - being able to feel the wool with my hands was very rewarding and I will adopt this again in the future.

Rub, rub, rub until finally the wool was starting to felt and the prefelts had "stuck". Then the vessel was turned inside out and the process repeated.

At long last the resist was removed and the vessel was able to be shaped.

I was a bit disappointed that the black wool hadnt migrated at all but the red had made its way to the surface giving my vessel a pinkish hue.

My original design was to have a dramatic red and black opening but that didnt work so I turned down the edge to get a similar affect.

When I got the vessel home I did a lot more rubbing and shaping and then fulled it very heavily so it would retain its shape.

It was at that point that I decided I preferred the top turned up giving it a longer neck.

Finally I added some stitching on my prefelt embellishment.

Denise had advised painting on the stiffener with a paintbrush but my vessel was too tall. The only way was to turn it inside out paint it with the stiffener and then turn it back. What a job, turning thick felt through a narrow opening. I did manage it but my tshirt became soaked with the stiffener. Another one for the rag bag!

What do you put in a woollen vessel? I raided the garden and painted a couple of branches black. Then felted some fine tufts of wool and viscose into leaves to hang on the branches.

Finally, it was finished! 

What did I learn: Plan the design better and spend more time felting the prefelts in place; Use painters plastic for felting. It has a nice feel and felts well; On thick felts like this, warm water and no soap initially work best.

Not sure that vessels are my "thing" but it was sure fun trying!