Ooh, I just love hearing the delivery man pulling up outside especially when I know that the box he’s brought for me is full of new materials and felting supplies! Unfortunately the silk organza that I wanted to try was not in stock but everything else I ordered is present and correct. When I mentioned that I wanted the delivery asap in advance of a workshop which had been organised with a tight time frame Wollknoll pulled out all the stops and the box arrived less than a week after it was ordered, thanks for a great service and great products guys! Rami arrives late on Saturday night all the way from Beruit, we’ll have 7 full days together exploring flat and three dimensional wet felting, nuno felting and a little bit of needle felting too.
Sea Slug II
Those of you who know me well understand that I don’t practice needle felting as an art form although I definitely find that the needles can sometimes help if I’m trying to secure inclusions during the layout stage of some bags and vessels as well as build up the bumps on my ‘Seashapes’ series of sculptures and vessels. Here you can see a picture of one of my nudibranch inspired sculptures ‘Sea Slug II’ photographed by Rob Lamb and included in Sylvia Tompson’s wonderful new book ‘Hands On‘. Up to now I’ve always used upholstery foam or kitchen sponges behind whatever I’m stabbing but they’re definitely a little bit grotty at this stage so I actually ordered some proper foam and a selection of different sized needles to have here for Rami to play with.
Anyway, I better stop procrastinating and head downstairs to get stuck in and continue my studio tidy up! Adieu.
Nicola Brown Fine Art Textiles 
Hope that by now all of your tidying is completed. If it is, you are much less messy than I…Can’t even tell you how long it took me to tidy my studio!!!!!! 😉
Wonderful that you are included in the ‘Hands On’ book…I love your Sea Slug.
I know that you and Rami will have a fantastic time together. Be sure to post lots of photos.
Have a great day.
Big hugs,
Dawn
I’d never been particularly interested in needle felting until I recently took a webcam class with Andrea Graham, and she opened my eyes to all the ways I could use it in combination with wet-felting to get really amazing 3D shapes! These days I find myself constantly examining forms and figuring out how to recreate them through wet and/or needle felting.
I love that sea slug, he’s so marvelous!
Best,
Kelci
Foam rubbish for needle felting the proper
Clover block is preferable and gives a safer experience with a tighter felting hold.
Of course depending on what effect you desire the correct size needles and holder are essential Sometimes I use a very fine single needle other times a bunch of heavy ones in the holder.
Clover now has a fabulous range.
Did you not end up sewing this together Nicola ??maybe the stitching could have been avoided if differing needles used.
Yes Chrissie, I use the spring loaded Clover tool myself and do have a selection of different needles and little wooden holders, I just needed to restock before Rami’s arrival. No, this sculpture had no stitching, only wet felting with the orange tips initially added with the needle, the bumps were wet felted. It was my very first nudibranch piece that needed some stitching mid way through the process, after that I developed my working process and don’t have any fabric included in the layout, interestingly it was the fabric that stretched that first time and nothing to do with the merino.
I like your sea slug 🙂 I only recently found out that garden slugs have 4 noses! Freaked me out somewhat!