Gertie Games and Fairy Making

I spent the day doing laundry and playing with felt. I set up shop in the dining room, perfectly situated just a step or to from the basement door. I could run down the basement steps, move over a load of laundry and dash back up to my felt.

I've been working on "Caroline's Fairy". (I can't wait for her to be delivered into Caroline's arms so I can finally know what her true name will be. I won't name a doll if I know it will be travelling on.) I haven't been thrilled so far with the two bodies I'd already made, so I brought out my gertie ball and started again. A nice warm bowl of soapy water, some beautiful multi-colored merino called "daffodil", the gertie ball and ahhhh...felting magic! Hmm, not today. It just wasn't coming together. The felt ended up being lumpy and uneven. The beautiful daffodil color was still beautiful but the variegation in it created a pattern that just didn't look right. And horror of horrors...I wound up with a hole in one spot. I guess I need to work on my technique of laying down the wool and pulling the pantyhose over so the wool doesn't shift. Sometimes there are more mechanics and chemistry than most would imagine in the creative process.

When it's dry, I could do something with it, but it wouldn't be a body for this fairy! Back to the original bodies. The muse speaks up. "Grab a bag of angelina, a strand or two of roving, felt that beautiful shimmery stuff right on to those bodies." Luscious, just what was needed and I am not so far off the mark anymore.

See some of the process in the photos above and an in-progress photo of the face with the base structure of core wool only. Next will be to add the "skin" of flesh tone roving and the wet felting.