I'm still mostly writing (Briar Bank, due at the end of August), but I couldn't resist doing some felting this weekend, since Bill is still in New Mexico and I can leave my stuff out without getting in anybody's way. (We live in a small house, and when two people strew their stuff around, it's crowded, not to say messy.)
So here I am, felting at the kitchen counter. The first photo is a stack of dyed, carded fibers ready to be felted. I'll wet them, mash them, and roll them, then roll them some more. Takes some elbow grease, but that's basically all there is to it.
This is the felted piece. I like to name things, so this is "Dancing the Blues." I love the bright, swirly colors. It's pretty loosely felted, because I also love the textured surface.
In this photo, I'm still playing with surface. The wonderful thing about felt is that it (unlike canvas) is infinitely malleable. You can see that I've gathered and tucked the ends, emphasizing the swirls of color. When it's to my liking, I'll sew and needle felt the surface to an underlying felt piece, to stabilize it. Fun!
Briar Bank is also fun--oooh, I love my dragon! (His name is Thorvaald.) I discovered a new book by Edith Nesbit (author of The Wouldbegoods). New to me, that is: The Book of Dragons was written in 1900 as a charming series of stories in The Strand. (That's the same British magazine in which Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were published. Nesbit was paid 30 pounds for each story--quite a lot, at that time!) If you like dragons, you'll love this whimsical, enchanting book.
Reading note. This are the first two paragraphs of the first story, "The Book of Beasts."
He happened to be building a palace when the news came, and he left all the bricks kicking about the floor for Nurse to clear up--but then the news was rather remarkable news. You see, there was a knock at the front door and voices talking downstairs, and Lionel thought it was the man come to see about the gas, which had not been allowed to be lighted since the day when Lionel made a swing by tying his skipping rope to the gas bracket.
And then, quite suddenly, Nurse came in and said: "Master Lionel, dear, they've come to fetch you to go and be king."
How can you not like a story about dragons that begins in this magically off-hand way?