felt + the beach

i want to share a couple of things that i'm working on at the moment. our last trip to the beach yielded the usual assortment of shells and stones and bits of beach glass. as ever, i am attracted to stones and shells with holes in them and so a few of those always make their way home with me.

sitting in the living room and sorting the new finds next to the basket of wool, it occurred to me that it would be fun to try to combine the two. from my feather stones, you know how much i love contrasts, so to experiment with the warmth and softness and colors of wool along with the hardness and the grey of shell and stone seemed very appealing.

those of you on instagram and flickr with me, may have see a bit of the one above, as i took a couple of iPhone snapshots when i was asking lisa's advice about whether i needed to glue (as it turned out, i did not). i was able to use a hole that had worn in this old oyster shell and the felt is securely and tightly in place. i'm not sure yet what it is, nor do i think i'm done with it, but i love what's happening so far.

i love how this stone got much more heart-shaped after i added some black felt with a bit of red sparkle.

i'm letting these pieces tell me what's next, as an exercise in listening. this one says it's done, but i'm going to let it sit for a day or so and see if it still thinks so.

this one came out today. i am loving these colors and did a bit of twisting of the wool to make it curl onto itself before felting it with the fine needle. this one has told me that it needs a few french knots, so i guess i'm off to work on that.

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this is amusing (and made by my cousin).  

and you can vote for it.

that is, if you think it's a good tutorial on how to make a bacon potholder.

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oh, and the Pinterest app is here. 

tho' only for iPhone and not for iPad.

so i'm still not completely satisfied.