I have this simply gorgeous hand dyed gauze in a special green that I dyed a few months ago and I want to use it to create something special. I've learned to create a small sample to see how the materials react before delving in to a large project, that way materials and colors can easily be adjusted. For those of you with needle felting machines, I've been experimenting quite a bit combining machine needle felting and then wet felting; more details are spelled out in my new book scheduled to become available in September 2009. This experiment was to determine the color compatibility as well as find out what would happen to the variegated mohair yarn once the wet felting process was complete. The mohair must have a non-wool fiber core; however, it got a lovely effect; even though it was added in long curves it ruffled up in a lovely fashion once wet felted - perhaps you can see it if you zoom in. A helpful tip - since this was quite a narrow piece, I used my marble rolling pin to roll it on top of a bamboo mat; this worked really, really well. Because the fibers were already integrated through the gauze by using the machine, the time spent rolling was cut down considerably compared to just laying on fibers and then soaping, rubbing and rolling. The puckers (seen on the back) appear once it had been fulled by tossing it in the sink quite a few times. I think these fiber choices will work really well for my larger project and I plan to add some other things for interest too. The bottom picture shows the preliminary wetting/soaping layout prior to rolling.
