Bottoms up

At the very start of the year, I had an urge to buy some chicken wire..

I then started to weave it into a sort of chimney shape (supposedly for the ill-fated machine embroidery group project on "chimneys", which has since been allowed to die quietly as nearly all of us ignored it and carried on doing other things ...)

I am pleased to announce that this morning I FINALLY had a bottoming out ceremony for my woven chimney - it had been sitting bottomless on the bookcase for about 6 months.  I even added a bottom to a felted coiled chimney (and that one was started even longer ago, in July last year...)

I quite like them, but the chicken wire chimney is a bit squishy:

The turquoise one is a bit more robust, as the felt overlaps itself and there is a massive length of thick copper wire attached all the way around...that was interesting to sew, I can tell you.  Nearly had an eye out...

Fun.

Why this sudden burst of procrastination-busting finishings off?  I'm exhibiting with the Wednesday Workshop group of the local Embroiderers' Guild branch, and it all kicks off on Thursday.

Losing the thread?  It may be too late...

While the cat was still away...

 

On Saturday I took over the kitchen and dyed some old wool blanket, recently acquired from the charity shop.  Boiling bits of it up in a pot was slightly more successful than using a plastic tray, particularly when I discovered (after pouring in a kettleful of boiling water) that one of my trays had a crack in the corner.  It didn't really "felt" though, and I know from bitter experience, and a long session with buckets and towels and rubber gloves, that putting it all through the washing machine on a hot wash just clogs the filter...

So after creating lots of blue fluffy mess, which I left to drip dry in the bathroom, I was feeling a bit despondent.  So I tried something else.  I used wool fibres, and silk, and fabric scraps and thread snippets to try making some "paper" using cellulose paste to bind it all, in the same manner as making silk paper.  So the sample above is one sheet drying on the washing line, and here is some more:

Not sure what I'm going to do with these yet, but I have a few projects in mind...the top one reminds me of a highland landscape, with a distant red tin roof peeking above the peat bogs.  That's if I squint at it with my lenses out, otherwise it's just a blue thing.

Reinspired, I then dug out the ol' embellisher on Sunday morning.  One of my soggy woolly dyeing experiments was a piece of prefelt which I have had kicking about for months, to make a background for another "chimney" piece.  It had dried overnight, so I embellished it together with another piece to create my cooling towers.  I then wet felted it, and as I was rolling it and unrolling it and rolling it again, I came to realise that I preferred the back of it to the front.  Except the cooling tower was then on the wrong side. 



So I had to do another one, reversing the positioning, so that the cooling tower would be on the right side of the wrong side...if you see what I mean....except I now prefer the right side of this second sample, not the wrong side, which means that the cooling tower is STILL on the wrong side....

And lo, I ran out of time because the little Brownie returned and slept for 12 hours and now it is Monday morning and time to clean the bathroom.