wet-felting party in the driveway...

Remember the blessingway, back in January? And that sweet baby's birth in February? Well, there was another party planned for him that didn't come to pass before he was born, so this week we gathered at our house (well, in our driveway), the half-way point between friends to the south and friends to the northeast, to make him and his mama a felted blanket.

Much of the wool came from our friend E's Jacob's sheep, and had been dyed with natural dyes.  The kids sat on blankets (again, in our driveway!), carding the roving and creating their little additions to the whole.

Melanie, the mama, chose a tree for the image...

 We all added our bits and pieces: butterflies, nests, blossoms, leaves...

...mushrooms (Anika's addition!), worms (mine - actually, I was lucky to be holding the baby, so I was happy to throw in a worm for each family member under the tree as my contribution!)...

our perspective on the event...

Once everything was in place, dishsoap was squirted over the whole piece, and hot water was dribbled.  The background piece of wool had been laid on a piece of bubble wrap, which was lying in a kiddie pool.

 Once the piece was all wet, another piece of bubble wrap was laid overtop, and the pressing began.  It was stressed how important it was to press down, not side-to-side, so as to not disturb the individual pieces or pull the wool apart.

I love how everyone could be involved...there were even wee ones who tended to the full water buckets, making sure they had enough leaves and sticks floating in them and that everyone was getting wet enough, you know...

Once it looked as though the wool was sticking to itself well enough, not easily torn apart, the top piece of bubblewrap was removed and the whole thing was rolled up and rubber-banded into a long sausage.

Time for wet-felt dancing! This took a while - maybe 45 minutes total - of squeezing and stomping and massaging, then unrolling and rolling it back up the other direction and doing the same, over and over...

Until it was done! A beautiful hanging or baby mat, made in community for dear friends.