Teaching an Old Dog Some New Tricks

      I've been in a blogging hiatus it seems.  With the opportunity to be juried by a new and prestigious retailer, I have been imagining being seen through their eyes when I make my presentation of pieces created in hopes of seducing their acceptance.  I am prone during times of self-examination to always believe I'll be found wanting. That though often I can  in a million things,  I seldom sit still and thoroughly learn the real "how-to of things.  I'm always too itchy to  go "hands on".

The most recent fruits of my labor.

      That's a good thing according to Einstein, who believed that knowledge can only be achieved through experience. Experiencing new art forms and methods,  however,  often leads me down a rabbit hole of fruitful but lengthy digression.   I have always felt blessed with and innate sense of the creative.   Having a dependable "feel" for things is often to the detriment of actually learning  the true process.  Tried and true rather than trial and error would save time when I have a deadlines and demands.
True to form though, trial and error have been the order of the day these last few weeks as I teach myself to "wet felt",  an exciting departure from the needle-felting that has consumed this last year.  My first few pieces have encouraged me to go on.  Getting a feel for consistency and weight is the challenge so far but here's my very first piece,  a seamless tea cozy.

My first seamless wet-felted tea cozy

      At the onset,  wet-felting affords  much less control so WAY-Y out of my comfort zone. The results  to date have been fantastic! ( Of course I might have more control if I had a full grasp of my teaching videos,..turns out the best ones I've  found are Russian or Scandinavian!  Here's one I love,  even though it's  entirely in another language the girl's face and manner are most endearing..   http://youtu.be/0W2nWsz3irA  (  my favorite moment is at 4:13 when she flips over the piece and says " Chhhhpook!!... )   Anyway,.. I watched the whole video and then I made this!!



      It really has been fun. The next pieces are all tea cozies too.  One piece is a cool seamless spring one to which I will add a needle-felted riot of flowers, butterflies. bees and lady bugs.  I  need a little time to embellish it so I promise to post a photo of  it when it is finished. The other,  a crow/forest design shown below,  is wet felted in two pieces and will be blanket-stitched together.  For now, the journey is always worthwhile.



      Plato stated;  "Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."  Oh, and by the way...wet felting involves oodles of bubble wrap!