Felting Lilies

Still cramming everything in at the last hour. As part of the Experimental Textiles course I am doing with SW TAFE, a sample depicting CONTAIN had to be completed. The night before doing this, I was flicking through a magazine when I saw this photo of lilies - I have a bit of an obsession with this shaped lily in my art work.

It gave me the idea to do some felting CONTAINING this lily image, well, an approximation of it anyway.
So... I chose three of the lilies for their shape and placed a mix of orange and yellow wool over a layer of greens. It's not quite as simple as it sounds. I did put a bit of groundwork into it.


Now time for lots of elbow grease in the form of soapy water and agitation to get those fibres to hook onto each other. I must have done a good job because it shrunk so much more than I expected- more length wise than width wise so my lilies are fat. Before felting, it was very close to the same size as the bubble wrap. Felting is definitely not an exact science.

Next step - machine embroidery - another new skill I am just getting to know.

Yep, the leaves look a bit odd, but it is EXPERIMENTAL textiles and I am having so much fun experimenting.

Following is what I had hoped to be their shape, thanks to a bit of elongation in Photoshop.

And here is another piece I added to my samples folder for the CONTAIN subject, which is basically drawing pictures with the sewing machine. I hope I've got enough life left for all the ideas I have swimming around in my head.