Carrying On.

One of the things I do have in the new, as yet unestablished studio, is a number of UFOs, things that I thought, six months or more ago, that had enough potential for me not to bin them, or pass them to someone else to do something with, as was the fate of a reasonable amount of stuff.  Looking at them now, I'm not so sure I shouldn't just have binned them... and certainly this piece in its original state was not particularly promising.  I had taken a rectangle of cotton hand dye, and felted white wool onto its surface...sadly, I didn't take a photo of it in that state.  It didn't look good.  I don't like giving up, though, and thought that a bit of surgery was in order...so I trimmed it round the edges of the wool, to produce this :

(Note the new light grey carpet, suitable for taking photographs of random textile items...which was not really why I chose it, but...).  I contemplated cutting holes in it, too, but decided that was A Step Too Far.  It was, however, a distinct improvement, so only the trimmings hit the bin.  It sat like that for a few days, and I started to go through the stuff in the studio.  One of the things I found was a sponge, with a single felting needle embedded in it.  Bingo!  Going through the boxes with yarn and threads produced a purple variegated wool, and the piece started to take shape...until the damn needle broke.  Yes, I have loads more.  No, I can't find them.  Yes, I'm stuck, and so is the piece, looking like this... 

(This time, it's on the new coffee table, perfect height and colour for photos).  Improved?  I think so.  Stuck?  Oh yes, absolutely.  I'm planning to do some hand stitch, but really don't want to start that until I've finished with the needle felting, as I suspect I'll add a little more at the top left hand side.  Basically, I attached the yarn to emphasise curves in the felting, which is why I started where I did.  I think I'll echo the downward sweep of the yarn, and then double back to balance out the piece.  Incidentally, I rather like the yarn curving out over the edge, but it's not particularly practical, so it will be felted onto the bottom as originally intended. 

One partially down, several to go.