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Monday 28 July 2014

The Beast is Born!

I finally unwrapped 'The Lobster'  created at The Winter Felt School to reveal this giant creation!! I think it was supposed to shrink more?!
My felting never seems to shrink as much as everyone else's, despite it being totally felted and fulled. Whilst the Amazonian Irene (right) can pull off this look quite well, I look like I'm drowning in a partly digested crocodile, so think I may chip-chop this garment and have myself a fabulous warm skirt! The steaming/boiling process of setting the shapes created some interesting colour effects, as the black beads bled into the fabric, and the pink dye came out of the bottom half of the dress and overdyed the green. There are also some really interesting spots where the fabric was touching the sides of the pot and remained green. I'm still very happy with the results, and have learned much - thanks Tatiana!!
Slate nuno felt dress & Boa
New wrap (detail)
Tomorrow I will deliver to TAFE the garments I am entering in the Calliope Catwalk competition. As well as last terms' three Studio pieces (for the Cutting Edge section), I have decided to enter three of my nuno felt dresses in the Wearable Art section. As I sold the boa which I used to display with my slate coloured dress, I decided it needed an accessory, as both the white and the plum dresses had matching wraps. So on Saturday I laid out and felted a matching wrap - within two hours! For the first time I used non-slip rubber matting instead of bubblewrap during the process, and what a difference it made! Within 200 rolls the piece was already hanging together, instead of after around 2000. Converted I am! Happy, I iz!! VERY!!
I've also been working on my fashion sketching - it was a little disheartening yesterday when some of my gals turned out a little alienesque.... So I ran with that theme and today used an image of a WOW design by Marjolein van der Wal for a practice sketch, which turned out well. I feel I am much better at drawing from something rather than just making it up! (However, an interesting design did come out of one of those earlier alien gals.....) Therefore, there is a point to everything. Hah!!

2 comments:

  1. A shame "The Lobster" didn't meet expectations...it looks SO promising in its tied form! I am sure you will transform it into something amazing! I love your nuno work: intricate and stunning!

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  2. On the matter of shrinkage, it is most likely that it didn't shrink sufficiently because your felt was thicker than you allowed for. Thick felt shrinks less than thin felt. It is totally scientific and predictable, and I am happy to share with you my method of planning the exact shrinkage of a garment. Let me know if you are interested and I can possibly post the details on my blog (which has been sadly neglected by me for a long time)!

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