Wednesday 30 April 2014

Egg-spiration!

Really the time for eggy posts has expired, but I do have one more to display, that owes much to two fab felters I follow!





A comment by Zed on one of my posts got me thinking! 
Always up for a challenge, and in the midst of egg making I decided to have a go!
The Felting and Fibre studio have a quarterly challenge, and this year the theme is famous artists.
For the first quarter (which has also eggspired!) the subject was Jackson Pollack.
I am most familiar with his 'drip and splash' style and tried to imagine how this could be transferred to felting a 3d object!
Remembering this flat piece I made last summer and Angela's very helpful comment that I had always wanted to try...
I went ahead with my 'fling and roll' method!


Some colourful scraps (of wool, some acrylic, and cotton,)  from my spring projects 
were chucked haphazardly onto some bubble wrap, 
(on a cloudy day, hence the dull photo!)
A polystyrene egg, with natural shetland loosely needlefelted round it, 
was then rolled firmly through the carpet of scraps 
(using the bubble wrap, a bit like the bamboo mat whilst rolling sushi!)
With many strands sticking loosely to the egg it was stuffed into the doubled hem of some old net curtains, and gently rubbed with olive oil soaped hands to begin to stick the fibres.
When they started to cling, I just wet felted it as usual,
 with warm water, soaped hands, and the occasional firm roll in bubble wrap. 
There were some stubborn fibres that had not stuck quite so well, particularly in the sparsely populated areas, and a few stabs with the needlefelting barb kept them in place.



I am really pleased with the result, it reminds me of all the colours of Spring!
Mr RW appreciated it as his Easter gift too!

Many thanks to Zed and Angela for the continued inspiration and expert advice....


The colourful challenge for this quarter can be found here.....

8 comments:

Hindustanka said...

Lovely eggs! I never tried felting or any related craft.
Yours came out really nice, yes, in Spring colors!

Unknown said...

How nice, love how it turned out! :)

crazydazy said...

love these eggs too
........something else Ill be trying next Easter

linda said...

it's lovely Ali, so colourful :)

helenjean@midgetgemquilts said...

I love the Jackson Pollack look of these. I used to have your blog bookmarked on my phone, then moved to my computer and hadn't clicked to "follow" you, though I thought I had. Glad to refind your blog!

Amy at love made my home said...

I can certainly see the Jackson Pollock inspiration here! Of course yours is far more colourful and much nicer than his were! xx

Kate said...

Those eggs came out really neat, Ali :-)
And because I enjoy your blog, I nominated you for an award:
http://sssinthesun.blogspot.com/2014/05/a-blog-award.html
Thanks for being an inspiration to me :-)

Zed said...

Wow, that really turned out great! Is it ok to use a photo on the Studio site and link to your post?
I might borrow your method for felting soap, it sounds like it might help me!