Lizards in the Leaves

Rustlings in the green....imagination, art, whimsy

Apr 2, 2006

a felted thing

Most of the time, I believe this Thing I'm going to show you to be a hat, or a cap. But I'm not sure.
It began as one of my organic hats (okay, it's freeform I suppose, but I always like to make up other ways to talk and think about things...) and it turned out to be just way too big and I've always wanted to try to felt some freeform/organic work. There's a lot of wool in this piece, but some synthetic, and often felted crochet turns out a bit hole-y, so I didn't have high hopes, just regular ol' hope for it to become...interesting. And smaller.

So here is the Thing when it was finished being crocheted. I did this one differently than all the other hats I made a few weeks ago, in that I joined in several smaller bits -okay, they're "scrumbles" I guess, but my bits don't really look scrumbly, with many different yarns, stitches, directions. Mine are usually just spiral-y bits with a couple of different yarns, mostly in single crochet with a few half-double crochet and double crochet stitches thrown in.

Anyway, just way too big:

So I decided to felt it, as I most like to felt, by hand at the kitchen sink. I love this picture of the water spray drenching the piece:
And here I am tormenting it into changing:
into this:
Definitely smaller and I was very pleased that it did not become too hole-y, probably because of my preference for single crochet.

As it dried and tightened up a bit more, I began to wonder if it was, indeed, a hat. The brim just didn't look right. And I began playing with it, as a sculpture or vessel:
And then, eureka, I folded under that annoying brim-thing and loved this and thought, lo, it is indeed a vessel:
But then, it started looking like a hat to me again:

4 Comments:

At 4/2/06, 4:24 PM, Blogger Peacock said...

I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to see you creating again.. exploring your power and strength in the world around you through your art. :)
You are truly amazing!

 
At 4/2/06, 7:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It looks great in all its manifestations. Great colors and shapes. I'm too lazy to felt by hand. I just got a thrifted liz claiborne wool knit pencil skirt from the eighties in a glorious red that says dry clean only. I can't wait to throw it in with some jeans and see what happens.

 
At 4/3/06, 8:16 AM, Blogger Jackie said...

Who says that it has to be either a har or a vessel? It can be both, depending on your mood and/or need at the time. I LOVE the spiraly thingie way of construction. Now I want to go try one.

It is great to see you creating again! I agree with Peacock, You ARE truly amazing!

 
At 4/3/06, 12:26 PM, Blogger Carol Dean Sharpe said...

I make fabric vessels/bowls and sell them at the local farmer's market. Invariably, some young manchild will take one and place it on his head, announcing proudly, "Look, Mom, it's a hat." It's all in how you look at things.

I'm glad you're finding your way back.

 

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