I wrote about this piece last August as I described the felting process. But before I could take a good "The End" photo, I made the mistake of taking it up to my girlfriend's (for show-and-tell) and she convinced me that it had found its perfect home.
You see, she has a turquoise wall in her home that was the perfect compliment to my "Jelly Belly Button". And so it is.
[Why I didn't think to take a straight-on shot of it is a mystery (errr). Guess I'll just have to go back for a visit:).] 
Oh, I beg to differ! It's all a matter of perspective.
And lest you think this looks pretty easy to do, let me just say this was one of the tougher workouts I've had in a very long time. Hello Hamstrings! Yep, I used my hands, my arms, my back, AND my feet and legs to beat this jelly roll into submission. But I do like the results :).
These little confections are the beginnings of my getting back to my felting. I just needed to do a little project to steer my attention back to my very favorite of creative endeavors. So with a cloud of natural white corriedale wool and a few twists of red and burgundy merino, the felting began!
And after a while....
Voila! 
(click any photo to enlarge) 
The photo is of a jellyfish relative called a blue button. So I'm naming this, Jelly-belly button :). I am mostly enamored with it's tentacles, but the overall design is pretty neat, too. I also was inspired by the technique Linda Brooks Hirschman used on her "Floating Poppies" in Carol Huber Cypher's book "how we felt".
So, on my blank slate, I started adding wisps
of colorful merino fiber. It's like laying out cotton candy, but not that sticky...or tasty.
After laying out the basic design, I took it down to our kitchen and soaked it carefully with water, laid some bubble wrap on top, and started shakin' it, well, rubbing it with my fingers back and forth. About mid-way through, I added some yarn highlights to the design. I kept adding hot, soapy water and enlisted the help of a hand-sander with a washboard attachment to help me with the agitation. I think I was getting more shakin' than the fiber! The water, soap and agitation all help the fibers to interlock. A long time later (did I emphasize long? :)), it was felt! I rinsed and squeezed the water out and inverted Jelly-belly over a bowl to shape it while it was drying. It doesn't look so great at this point....
But then, the part I love the best - flipping it over to reveal how it looks once dry. Yea! It's so fun to see the colors come out and see how the added yarns worked. 
(click any image to enlarge)"A yurt?", you ask? Well, I did, at least. Yurts are round structures built with a wooden frame and a felt cover in Central Asia. In the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, part of their "Fashioning Felt" exhibit is a contemporary interpretation of a yurt by the studio of JA Felt (Centralia, WA) that is stunning. The photo above is the main room, and below is the roof of the structure.
The roof is a beautiful composition of felted diamond shapes felted onto silk organza. By felting the wool with the organza, JA Felt created a light-filled space of pattern, texture, and ...wow! 
And the longer I stood looking, the more details I noticed like the "gems" they applied to the felt that was at the top of the 'wall' (left) and lettering they added onto the felt (right). 
If you are interested in how they made the elements in this beautiful structure, here is the link to the Cooper-Hewitt You Tube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qv23mvOfcE&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblog%2Ecooperhewitt%2Eorg%2Fcategory%2FFashioning%2DFelt%2F&feature=player_embedded
It was really a fabulous exhibit with so many different felted materials that had distinctly different characteristics and uses. It was incredibly inspiring and, though I am certain I won't be making a yurt anytime soon, I might be trying my hand at some of the techniques on a tad smaller scale :).
Last week, my husband and I were in Brooklyn visiting my step-daughter and son-in-law (very fun trip :) ). We went to the Cooper-Hewitt museum to see their "Fashioning Felt" exhibit. (IYIYI - more on that in a future post.) While in the exhibit, I met Carol Cypher (left). Her hair had been..., well... felted! She had strawberry blonde dreadlocks that were...well...beaded!! How fun is that?! We started talking and I couldn't help noticing her wonderful necklace. It had big round 'beads' made out of colorful felted fibers mixed with equally colorful and textured
glass beads. Oh, and she had felted a flower pin full of felted petals of beautifully blended colors. She mentioned that she does workshops both on beading and felting as well as being the author of books. But it wasn't until I got home and really looked at her card that I realized she is the author of a book I had requested (and got!) for Christmas, "How We Felt". It's a terrific book, very inspirational as well as instructional. 
I bought a felthead that is entitled "Anger Management". It hangs on my studio door and makes me smile everytime I see it. Her website, http://www.artheadstudio.com/ , is worth visiting. She also has an Etsy shop with prints of her watercolors as well as some of her felt and recycle/found object pieces.
And she has an impressive Show schedule. So you might be able to catch her live and in person. As with most art, seeing her pieces up close is even better than the photos, so much easier to see the details and fun to see what titles she has named them. 
Starting next week, if you are in the NYC area, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is having a Fashioning Felt exhibit. "The exhibition explores the varied new uses of felt in a range of fields, including product design, fashion, architecture, and home furnishings." (William Berry on http://coooperhewitt.org/ .) It runs through September 7. Sounds right down my alley! (Joy, can we go?!) And thanks to Kim for finding this first!
Yesterday was a very fun, creative day in the studio and kitchen. And it didn't involve sewing or cooking :). The kitchen part is the last step of the felting process and this (at left) is the result. It is
