Textiles at Last.

Too many posts about housework and no sewing will get me drummed out of the big list of sewing blogs so I hope this one will make up for the lack.
We have had an awful lot of this

but now we are having a bit of this.

If you look to the right you will see that the giant guinea pigs have been playing in the fields, so it must be summer.
Time for our (almost) local Summer Open Exhibition.
This year, in reckless mood, I am submitting a piece of felt.

I have been making felt for years, but mostly to illustrate techniques for workshops.
Here are two samples showing the resist technique made with a piece of plastic between layers to create a bowl which I now use each year to work stitch samples into,

and a seamless purse with some spiral 'beads'
and of course there's always the need for a bit of nuno.

This very small sample was worked onto black silk chiffon with brightly coloured wools layed in a grid pattern.

Nothing very exciting.

In the past I have made felt mainly to use as a background for embroidery such as in these 'Boots for a Sea Nymph'
I layed it onto sheer metallic organza and stitched it, then burnt slots and holes with a soldering iron to make fishy looking elements.
I added coiled enamelled wire for more undersea effects
and sewed on some beads.
These boots appeared in The World of Embroidery aeons ago. A major City and Guilds project of mine was a 5-panel screen with faces from Greek Vases in 3 windows on each panel. The felt was laid down onto waxed and inked brown paper as a base for machine embroidery around the outside of the face. The machining lifted the face into relief.
Features were embroidered by hand, (I enjoyed the hair especially)
and the background was stitched with Stef Francis threads using Cretan Stitch.
At the beginning of this year I was invited to be a part of a new group meeting monthly to share ideas and work together on felt. We have a monthly theme or technique and its good to focus on felt for the time we are there. Its a lovely group, there's always cake, but we still haven't got a name.

There are some extremely talented members, and I am just the 'Milk Monitor'. (I don't know what that means in the rest of the world but UK readers of a certain age will understand)

However I have done some experimenting.

This one with a resist of glass pebbles and large buttons

and my exhibition submission is a long wallhanging made using prefelts and the embellisher.

I am reluctant to show too much because I have never entered a piece of felt for its own sake before and I have no confidence in its chances.
Its called 'Tales from the Riverbank'
There is a tiny bit of stitching on it.

I am so glad I joined the felt group, not least because in March, in the interests of research and inspiration, four of us are going to Marrakesh. (Woolly wooo!)

Now I hope thats enough 'Textiles' for this post . Perhaps it makes up for the lack in the previous few.

And now may I introduce our guests for this weekend?
Porky and Blodwyn.
They are no trouble.

They brought their own breakfast,
and they don't care about dust.