This is what happens when my daughter doesn't feel like modelling.
I started with dyeing the wool with fiber reactive dyes and than felted the main image, fishes, starfish and some of the coral included. I did use a bit of needle felting to secure some of the pieces in place and the rest was done with wet felting.
I wanted to add some more coral, so I tried some crochet until I was satisfied with the texture.
Quilting was a good way to give the whole piece a bit of relief. When I was happy with the result, I did sew the crochet pieces onto the rest.
I than hang up the whole panel onto a beautiful piece drift wood. 
This wall hanging would look lovely in your beach home.
Are you familiar with how to make felt? If not, following is a very basic felt making tutorial for beginners and suitable for adults and children, exited about learning a new technique.
Felt making requires a few tools, already available in most households:
-a table
-plastic to protect your table
-an old towel
-a piece of bubble wrap, at least 40cm x 50cm or a beach mat or bamboo stick window blind
-50g wool slivers merino wool or other good felting wool
-a piece of fly screen at least 40cm x 40cm
-a spray bottle with hot soapy water
-tape measure
-some rags
Mark off an area of 30cm x 30cm.
We are now ready to lay down the wool for our piece.
Take the wool sliver into your left hand (left handed people in right hand).
With your right hand, gently pull a piece of wool and put it in a corner of your square, the side that you hold in your hand goes on the edge, except if you want very irregular edges.
We are now ready to start a new row. This time we let the loose bits overlap the first row. Every piece we lay down is now overlapping the wool of the first row and the previous piece.
When we have covered the total surface with wool, we spray water over it.
We repeat this whole process in the second layer, which is placed at an angle of 90 degrees on top of the first. We keep going with 2 other layers, each time changing direction and wetting with the spray bottle after each layer.
If there is water coming through the screen, when you push down the wool means that it is too wet. Now the rags will come in handy, use them to soak up the water.
Roll up and down for approx. 5 minutes for a start and than check. If the wool is still very loose, keep rolling. You can test that by carefully lifting the fibers.
Roll again for 5 minutes and do the previous test again. If the wool is still a bit loose, keep rolling. Turn the piece on an angle of 90 degrees and roll again for another 5 minutes.
When the wool has felted enough, this means the whole piece holds well together, we can go over to the next stage, called the filling. This can be done as long or as short as you want. The longer you do it the harder and stronger the felt becomes.
The filling can be done by more rolling in the bubble wrap or the bamboo roll. Another method is by rubbing it over the sink, which goes faster and makes it harder as well.
Happy felting!
The felting technique originates from Central Asia, where nomads felted wool and other animal hair into tents (yurts), clothing, rugs... It is still practiced in these areas.
Felt and felt making are gaining popularity all over the world now and the possibilities are endless, the results often a surprise.
I would like to give a short overview of the different felting techniques and I will post some tutorials soon, so that you can give it a try if you haven't already.
There are different techniques in feltmaking.
Wet Felting:
To make wet felt, layers of wool are spread out onto a plastic piece of bubble wrap, wet with hot soapy water and agitated until they hold together as a fabric. What happens here is that the wool fibers have scales, opening up with hot water and soap and through friction they will hook into each other. This is called felting.
I used wet felting to make this kangooroo rug
. 
Dry Felting or Needle Felting
Another form of felt making is the dry felting, also called needle felting, where special felting needles are used to felt the wool together. The needles, which have hooks, are moved up and down into the wool. This created the friction and the fibers hook into one another, which makes them felt together. Needle felting creates a much more softer and fluffier felt than wet felting. You can however make harder items by using courser wool and felt it really long.
In this wall panels "clefts" I used both wet felting and needle felting.
Nuno Felting
Nuno felt is made using one of the 2 techniques above and instead of using only wool, a sheer fabric is used in between the wool layers. With nuno felting it is possible to make a much more thinner felt, because the fabric holds the wool together. You can cover the fabric everywhere so that you don't see the fabric anymore, or you can add bits of wool here and there and it is possible to create wonderful textures with this. It is a big favorite of mine.
Check out this purple nuno felted scarf in my etsy shop.
Come and check out soon for tutorials about feltmaking or follow my blog.
The pink felt art handbag "Find the Centre"has been sold yesterday. This lovely handbag will be sent to the UK today.
This nuno felted shawl, "Intense Love", was my februarychallenge for the Fibre Art Etsy Street Team. The monthly team was emotions.
After some serious struggling with internet access, I finally could add some pieces to my etsy shop.
I have been making some shawls that I'm really proud of.
OCEAN SHAWL.
I liked to picture the foaming waves in the ocean near the beach. I used silk chiffon and also some knitted white cotton to achieve that. I wanted the silk to ruffle so that there would me more life into it. This happened naturally during the felting process.
COLOURS OF THE REEF.
This shawl was really playing at good luck and see what the outcome would be. I used silk for this nuno felted piece and 2 thin layers of wool, one on each side. I played with colours and added some fabrics and lace. This is the outcome.
This shawl has been sold.
This time I took my leftovers from other projects and felted them all together in this one shawl. It was very experiental and totally unpredictable, as every part reacted differently to the felting process.
The flowers of yellow cosmos are not only a beauty in the garden, they also yield a variety of vibrant colours.
I'll give a short overview of a few colours you can achieve with this wonderful flowers.
The yellow and orange flowers both give the same results. I haven't tried other cosmos.
The wool is first mordanted with alum. A mordant is needed to fix the dye to the fibers. I use the natural rock alum, I am lucky to have a supplier in this area.
After boiling the flowers in water, I put the wool in the dyebath and let it boil until desired colour intensity. This will give a yellow colour.
Now the fun starts. We can modify the yellow colour in many different ways:
-soak in water with vinegar: the colour will turn more into a lemon yellow.
-soak in water with soda: this yields a bright orange.
-soak in rusted nail water (this is obtained by putting rusted nails in water and vinegar for at least a few days): you'll get an olive green.
-soak in rested nail water, rinse and soak in soda water: the wool becomes rust brown to dark warm brown.
I only use natural and non toxic ingredients in my natural dye techniques. This keeps it safe for me and for the planet.
One of my result with yellow cosmos dyes:
This work is a sunset at the sea with a few coconut palms in the foreground.
I felted this wall panel to depict the silence and peace on a quiet evening on the beach with the only sound the waves and the wind in the palm leaves.
The wool has been dyed with onion skins and yellow cosmos flowers, both mordanted with alum and some have been treated afterwards with soda or iron water (rusted nails in water) or a combination of the 2 methods to give a range of different yellows, oranges and browns. The finishing touch was done with stitching.
silence detail
Eclectic is how she describes herself. She seems like a busy bee to me, expressing herself in a very creative way, resulting in extraordinary pieces and I bet they are warm and soft!
I love her style. Check it out:
Art For Your Head "Graciela"
A freeform creation done with a combination of techniques.... felting (fulling), knitting, crocheting, handspinning. She handspun this yarn from some beautiful handdyed yarns and the felted portion is a blend of wool/alpaca.
This is a two piece ensemble... dramatic but with much attitude! It is warm but light weight, funky but elegant. Read more:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8773320
Please visit her etsy shop for more of her creations: www.dreamwoven.etsy.com
and her blog; www.dreamwoven.blogspot.com
