What The Felt

You may, or may not, have been wondering about the origins of "whatthefelt." Well, its punny and a tangent of my inner dialogue.  If that didn't do it for you, here is an alternative answer.  I make felted things:

- Scarves 

- Shawls

- Shrugs

- Neckpieces

-Necklaces

- Pins

- Pendants 

... you're all smart people, you get it.

Over the summer I was presented with the opportunity to have my own exhibition and trunk show at the Cambridge Artists Cooperative in Cambridge, MA: /http://cambridgeartistscoop.com/

This is incredibly exciting but, of course, requires a lot of work as I needed 18 new pieces additional.  So I have spent a lot of time felting, and complaining about my back, and felting, and complaining about time, and objectively looking at my work and asking myself "what is that?" But after at least 8 hour days 5 or 6 days a week making, hanging, kvetching, I think I need to share the preliminary stages.  Below is a series self promotional photos, of fancy felted works in-process (you can also view my site at www.HannaZien.com for images of my larger more experimental pieces):

Before I start anything, I start with colors.  Meet my friends - brown (Bitter Chocolate), blue (Teal), tan (Buff) and blueish-greenish-grayish (Dusty Green) merino wool roving (complements to http://www.mielkesfarm.com/).  This is also a glamor shot of my impromptu studio space/living room take over.  Visible here is my work table covered with pool covering.  The pool covering has bumps on it like bubble wrap, these bubbles massage the wool roving fibers so that they stick together creating what will become pre-felt.

This was an experiment I am still figuring out the answer to.  The photo represents layers of cross hatched merino wool - you have to lay out 3 layers, I start with one vertical, one horizontal, and a third vertical because I like the way the colors blend together when they are laid out vertically.  Once you've finished laying out all your wool you cover it with nylon fabric and drench it with soapy luke warm to hot water and roll it back and forth 3 times for 9 minutes each.  I call this piece my sea anemone. 

A friend to my sea anemone, this scarf pretty much uses the colors that make me happiest.  In my rolling process I try to roll as many scarves as possible.  But let's not get ahead of ourselves and make believe I have a factory like operation here, that number is usually 2 since you need to account for the wool shrinking when it is finished off.

Once you have drenched these bad boys with soapy warm water, you unroll them, take the nylon covering off, and flip them over.  Then you repeat the process of nylon cover on, soapy warm water all over it, roll it up, un roll, flip, repeat.  Like I mentioned earlier - you repeat this process 3 times.

If you are disappointed that my sea anemone and friend are not shown on the above image, forgive me, but I just had to leave an air of mystery! Instead this is an example of 2 other pre-felted scarves.  They are drying.

Photos of the finished pieces will eventually be shown, in the mean time I hope to build up hype by leaving you in suspense ! ... honestly though, I just don't have adequate photographs of the finished pieces.

Until next time !