Needle felting

I love this. I made it.

Sorry, still learning how to make these pictures bigger for the blog. I can't get nice resolution if I enlarge it. If you click on it, you can get a slightly bigger view.

I don't know if I will make it into a cover for a poetry book, a little bag, or simply frame it. One of the most evocative emotional memories I have includes naturalized hollyhocks against adobe walls in the more remote villages of New Mexico and extreme southwestern Colorado. I may just send it to my sister and brother-in-law, who once managed a state historic site there. The gardens were fancier than adobe at those Victorian residences, but all the land around Trinidad is dotted with adobe abodes. AND moradas.

Today I tried needle-felting with a stencil. I think the negative spaces were too detailed- in any case, it bombed and I ripped out the wool. Now I'm making dark purple hollyhocks. That vibrant green is just the foam base where I do the needling. (ha!) You can see the felting needle in it.

Oh, and just today, I FELT the NEEDLE. I don't recommend it.