Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Constructed Heart #6

Not the prettiest thing, but boy! does it have a story!


At first I wondered what technique I'd want to use. I finally decided to make a needle-felted wool heart on wool flannel and then make it into a pillow. But first, I had to find my needle-felting tool! I am in the middle of reorganizing my spare room/studio (and I've been in the middle of doing this for at least 6 months), so this was no small task. I eventually realized I hadn't used it in nearly a year and finally found the right box.

I've really been fascinated by the needle felting I've seen and have decided I want a needle-felting machine, but all I can afford at this point is the hand tool. Unfortunately, while it managed to secure my wool roving to the background, I couldn't get any of my other wool scraps to felt together or to the background.

I gave up and decided to free-motion stitch my felt scrappy heart by machine. After breaking 3 needles, one bobbing and several threads, I gave up and had to complete the heart by hand. When adding a bit more roving to try to round out my original heart, I even broke one of the felting needles in the tool! I've concluded that the density of felted wool and top-stitching is just too much for any machine.

Unfortunately, this meant I couldn't finish yesterday and had to finish yesterday's heart this evening before dinner. Today's heart will be simpler and I will finish that this evening, too. (Is this computer wood? I just knocked on it anyway.)

1 comment:

Fannie said...

Your heart looks great. I bought felting tools but haven't used it yet. Will soon, though.