New work

After 3 months of not blogging, I am back. Since I got back from Canada in June, I have been busy at work and in a funk about starting new creative endeavours. Once you stop, it is quite hard to start again. Same is true for my Japanese homework!I bought a book called Threadwork, which had lovely saturated silk colours, used as bases for freestyle embroidery. Exactly the kind of embroidery I wanted to try. As on previous occasions, I found I am not so comfortable with handwork. I can't find a good position where I can see the work, and not get shoulder and neck ache, even more so with beading because of the limitations of keeping the beads confined.I was thinking of using it as a bag front, but now I am somewhat concerned that it would get abraded and pulled threads. Could maybe cover it in fine tulle.
Anyway, meantime, our group was having a felt challenge. No guidelines, felted crochet, needlefelting or wet felting were all OK. I wanted to make a piece to accompany the embroidery, in geometric blocks of colour. I thought it I did this on the needlefelting machine on soluble fleece, and then incorporated it into wet felting that it would be strong enough for a bag. I did the needlefelting, and then added crochet braids mainly wool, and some sari yarn, machined on with zigzag.
I realised that as the needlefelting got wet, then the fleece would vanish and the blocks would float around a bit. First, I laid out the rovings I had that would tone. One was multicoloured with a short staple and the purple and red pieces were merino with a longer staple. I did the 3 layers with criss cross, but keeping the colours as separate as I could. Then wetted it and put tulle over the top and did a little bit of wet felting, enough for it to hold together. Then I put the needlefelted piece on top of the prefelt, put the tulle back again and agitated it very gently. the soluble fleece vanished immediately, and I could see that the braids were going for a short wander. However, I rolled it up in the bubble wrap very carefully and started on the felting proper. It took quite a long time, but eventually it worked. Between rolls, I tried to straighten the braids and blocks as much as I could.
What I found:
doing the stripes for the wet felt would have been quite weak, had it not been for the needlefelting keeping it together. Stripes and blocks would be best on a prefelt for strength.
The longer staple pieces did not wet down, or felt as quickly as the short staple.
The edges did not tighten as much as I would have liked because I couldn't safely do a lot of friction on them without disturbing the needlefelted blocks.
It took a lot of rolling to get the needlefelt to mesh in with the wet felt. This was probably because the fibres in the needlefelt were not loose and looking for partners!

I have ordered some prefelts from Australia, so I will do more experiments when they arrive.

My aim is still to make a bag, but this may not be the right method.