Last Autumn I attended a workshop at York Feltmakers run by Jackie Lunn we were experimenting with pre-felt techniques. I decided to use it as an opportunity to create more tree pieces and made a quick sketch to get me going.
As requested, I’d made some pre-felt in advance from leftover scraps pf Merino. A little yellow laid out and needled in gave me some cutting lines.
Small circles cut out at the top of the tree and a few areas on the trunk too.
The technique was then to lay fibres out acrosss the back of the pre-felt and secure with needle felting all over. Behind each hole I put a circle of blue/green fibre in various shades. Some of them courtesy of Jackie who’d brought her bit box along for us to rummage through.
The mix of red/oranges with blue/greens is one of my favourites. Needle felting across the piece from back to front pushes little spots of the background colour forward. I felt that the background was then a little busy and the tree was less visible.
A little work with thread brought the tree forward again. I’ve done a running stitch along each yellow line of the tree, I did try stem stitch but it felt too heavy. In each blue circle I’ve put french knots in various shades of blue.
It’s turned out well. There’s a second workshop tree in progress which I will show you soon.
Beautiful!
Gorgeous!