Felting Flowers

As part of the Gabriola Arts Council amazing Isle of the Arts Festival last weekend I took part in a wonderful felting workshop given by an inspiring instructor and fibre artist Siki Mc Ivor. I was not familiar with either (wet) felting or needle felting so it was a fascinating process.

Wonderful colours of dyed roving and other fibres were provided

to create a felted flower.

We began by layering pieces of roving, and filling in the gaps to create the flower itself.

 Then used soapy hot water and friction to felt the fibres together, adding patches as necessary.

 
                          

The colour combinations people came up with were simply amazing.

A similar technique was used to make the stem.

And the stamen.

The flower, stem and stamen were then assembled and felted all together, first by needle felting...

 and then by (wet) felting, again using hot, soapy water and friction.

The flowers were absolutely stunning!

 The group was totally delighted.

... and so was I -
not to mention severely obsessed with yet another art form...