The Artists Muse

Recently I joined an online group called The Artists Muse and each month we have a challenge-the first was to make a mandala and this month was the Spring of Creativity.
The theme was to have a flower/spring feeling.
I have just attended a Nuno felting workshop(see previous Post) and I decided to do my challenge in this medium-I was unsure as to how it would work but I am happy to say I think I achieved what I set out to do.
The base fabric is cotton that I had rusted a few years ago and on this I lay out at right angles the wool fibres .
I used 3 different greens and then put the whisps of red down to resemble a flower and several buds (primitive as the are) and I added a small amount of mauve as a hi-lite.
The gold centre is a piece of wool challis.
The felting process was done in a bamboo blind and finished off on bubble wrap-less stressful on the hands than the old circular motion technique.
When I had finished and it was dry I then hand stitched with running stitch firstly the flowers- stems and leaves then I echoed the design to give it texture. I have varied the distance of the rows as an added feature.
I didn't crop the photo completly because I wanted to show the finished edge where the reverse side had rolled over to form a border.
This is the reverse side showing the rusted fabric and the detail in the stitching.

Here is a close up showing the detail around the flower.

And the reverse side where the flower is.

My hands are sore from all this stitching and I still have to do my TAST challenges (2 now).

I wonder what next month holds for us