...WOYWW - The One With The Felting Explosion

I'm scurrying in late (again) to the tail-end of Julia's weekly workdesk tour, even though the photo below was taken with the best intentions first thing this morning! 

Taking centre stage today is the stripey blanket I've been working on for my friend, who is due to have her first baby in a couple of months. I'm looking forward to getting into the upcoming green and yellow/orange sections of the skeins, as I seem to have been stuck in a rather dull blue/purple zone for a while now! This has been a great project to work on in the evening while watching telly as it's just plain stocking stitch with a little 5 stitch moss stitch border at either side, so requires minimal concentration.

Also on show (RHS) is a multicoloured bag of wool roving and (LHS) a couple of felting mats - a sponge block and a newly acquired brush-style mat. Having never done any kind of felting up until 3 weeks ago (other than shrinking every pure wool garment I have ever possessed, no matter how carefully I try to hand wash them) I have to admit that needle-felting  has snowballed rather rapidly into a full-blown obsession. 

  

Last Saturday found me beavering away all day on a couple of needle-felted brooch  designs - one loosely based on Van Gogh's Starry Night, the other a simple floral image, embellished with basic embroidery (french knots and running stitch). I stitched the brooch pins onto circular fabric scraps stiffened with interfacing, and then appliqued them carefully to the back of the felt discs, turning the raw edges in as I went. These were then bestowed upon my mother-in-law and my Mum the following day - in wipe-clean plastic bags through their respective letterboxes!

After wishing them both a "Happy Mother's Day!" from the regulation two metres distance, I went home and immediately started work on another project, which turned out to be a little old lady mouse with a wet-felted cape and a neatly coiled tail. I don't know where she sprang from - probably a Beatrix-Potter-based childhood memory - I just made her up as I went along. This is such an addictive craft - it's just like painting/sculpting with wool. You can simply go where your imagination takes you, and forget all about the (currently rather scary) outside world for a while.

Although I'm sticking very closely to the lockdown "rules", I am trying to make sure I spend a bit of time every day outside, away from my laptop and phone, either in the back garden or on brief excursions to the park with my daughter and the XXSCat Dog (who is absolutely loving the fact that her humans are home all day with her). So here are a couple of the photos I took this week whilst feeling thankful for the beautiful blue sky above my head and the carpet of glowing yellow celandines at my feet. Enjoy!