Wet and Wonderful

I've been exploring and rediscovering some mediums to add more to my pieces. The last few weeks I have been trying my hand at wet felting when I can be bothered getting a little messy.

My first attempt was to make some dragon wings which turned out ok and will most likely turn up in another project somewhere down the road.

Today's adventure was to make a painting out of wool. I started out choosing my colour scheme which was some blues, purples, greens and pink. I used a mixture of merino wool and silk.

I didn't take any work in progress photos as this is very messy and wet work. Basically the wool is agitated and "shocked" into joining together to create felt as most people know it. This is done using hot water, dish soap and muscle. Then it is thrown against a hard surface, kneaded, fulled and "shocked" by using hot and cold water washes.

The end result is very pretty and the colours blend really nicely. After I wet felted the background, I needle felted a unicorn in a gorgeous merino and angora blend. The unicorn's mane and tail are Tibetan lambswool and the horn is a merino/silk blend.

I added some other elements to give it even more life. There is a white rhinestone at the tip of the horn. The unicorn's eye is a beautiful blue glass eye. There are glass seed beads individually sewn into the "sky" to give it sparkle and simulate stars.

Here is the piece indoors under a different light. The colours are not as vivid.

The piece is called Starlight and is now available on Etsy.

I am really loving wet felting so will probably have a few more pieces popping up in the coming weeks.