Felting with Ebony

Yesterday was a public holiday here in Canberra so Ebony and I did some felting.
She loves felting but I think it's mainly about the mess than anything else.
To begin with she had to put a piece of terylene fabric down on the table --Fiona Wright who taught me this method calls it "Granma's curtains".
A piece of thin white silk chiffon 55cm X 35cm was then put on the curtain.
Then she placed the wool tops out in the design that she wanted on top of this.




Next there was a layer of this crappy scarfe over the top ..................

She then had to place the "grandma's curtain" over the top of this and it was then placed on some thin plastic (like you get over your clothes when you get them back from the cleaners) and rolled up in a towel and then rolled and rolled turning the plastic wad 4 times so that it was rolled in each direction once.

Then the piece was removed from the towel-plastic-curtain and placed in a plastic bag and put in the microwave for 40 seconds and removed and the fulling process begins.

To do this the plastic bag was smacked onto the table a few times until the bag burst and then she had to throw the felt wad onto the table.

This process makes the piece felt together ..the more you do it the more it felts.

I had to help at this stage because her arm was hurting.

I made a piece as well and they can be seen below..Ebony's is on the right .

They were both the same size when we started but I felted mine a bit longer than she did.

This is the back view and you will notice that the dye has run out of the wool and the piece of silk is now apricot.

I didn't use the silk on mine because I wanted to show her how it would look without it.

Ebony's felt is now 28cm x 21 cm.

I think she is going to make ATC's with hers because she wants to make some "fabric" ATC's instead of card ones.
So in a few weeks she will have 6 ATC's to trade---anyone interested?

All in all we had a good time.