Felted Cowl - the princess and the toad

You know what, I've just taken the cowl out of the machine and it looks good but I have decided not to go with the mermaid theme but to go with something completely different.

I'm currently listening to Emily Loizeau's cd Pays Savauge (I recommend it simply for the photographs, you get a wonderful french boho collection with a bearded lady,dandies, silk and furs, long skirts and tousled curls, top hats and horns) and I fell in love with the mix of languages and troubadourish style that echos through the entire album.

She has a wonderful song on there called "The Princess And The Toad" and it made me totally change my plans for this cowl. I'll still be decorating it with muslin but this will be tea stained and ruffled with gold tulle, old lace, pearls and water lillies and the loop pull will have two gold balls on the end to represent the ball that the princess lost in the palace pond which lead to the story itself.

I'll post some images from the album so you can see what has inspired me so much

Today I felt

Today I felt. I'm putting this cowl in to felt this morning. I'm a bit nervous as I know that the dark green main colour yarn felts like a dream, really tight and solid but the rest of it is made up of baby wool, plain wool and mohair mix so I'm not certain how they will react to the process.
Its crochet in filet stitch so its quite light but the felting should give it some body and shape




If its successful then I am planning to add ruffles of muslin, to the bottom and seed pearls dotted around the darker sections to give it an underwater mermaid/shipwreck look.

Its in the machine now so I wil check itevery 20 mins to make sure its going alright

Talk of mermaids my doll wings are finished and I now need to decide it I wil make her some arms or not as she looks slightly off balance just with the wings at the back

New Treasury and Treasury Feature

New Treasury listing.

Persephone Drops necklace




and a new treasury from Gilded Rose Designs

1,000 things alpaca treasury challenge#16 - my entry - Drowning for Pearls

This is my entry for the 1,000 things alpaca treasury challenge#16

The inspiration piece is this beautiful print by Falling Ladies, its called green lady but I thought of seaweed/underwater/mermaids/ as if she was falling into water having reached too far into the sea to pluck some glistening pearls from their watery bed.




This is my treasury

Odyssey Textile Art at Woodstock museum

Saturday was the opening day the Oxford museum at Woodstock. On display were some wonderful pieces of work, from a felted saddle blanket, a huge collection of mixed media inchies, remodelled china tea sets, a three part set of organza green man pictures and a wonderful set made from cardboard, beads and twine.

Cardboard and bead pieces

this one makes me think of corset bones

and this one is a perfect spine

Green Man 1

Green Man 2

Painted whitework with gold tints

Paper Mache Tea Set

Inchies

Recycled Tea Set

You can see more of their work at

http://www.odysseytextileart.co.uk/

'The Unspoken Word' - 12th March to 10th April 2011

Oxfordshire Museum, Park Street, Woodstock OX20 1SN. Tel: 01993 811456.
Open Tues to Sat 10-5 and Sun 2-5.

The exhibition is on for a month and if you go into the second room there is a lovely exhibition of paintings by autistic and learning troubled teenages based on English traditional folk art. Both are well worth a look