Since making my first vessel, I have been hooked on making more. Here is a vessel that I had high hopes for, but alas, it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Not everything we make is going to turn out well. As wet felting vessels is a new thing for me, I will admit that I still have a lot to learn. One of those things is patience and the other is perseverance. I used some Corriedale roving in Begonia. It is a reddish orange color. I was hoping to make a sturdy pot and the felt on this is quite sturdy. I topped off the Corriedale with Merino tops and some Teesdale locks in rainbow colors. The locks just got flattened and the Merino really didn’t felt well together.
I had been looking at this pot for about a week and then on Friday I had gotten up early and went about re-working the pot before I went to work. I just stuck it in very hot water from the kettle and got my soap to give it a good rubbing, or fulling as they say in felting circles. First I turned it inside out as it was very crinkly. Some people like that look in their pots, but that isn’t the look I was after. I used an empty pickle jar as a template to start to re-shape the pot while I massaged it all over and worked on getting rid of the wrinkles. Too bad that doesn’t work for faces! Ha! Once I was happy with the inside, I did the same to the outside. I even rolled it some more and it shrank a bit more, which is what I wanted. I was finally happy about getting rid of the wrinkles and the shape it was taking, so I got a very small bowl and worked the vessel around that some more to get a very nice pleasing shape. Once I was happy with the overall shape, I rinsed the vessel to get rid of the soap and then shaped it around the bowl again to let it dry. This is how it turned out.
Every thing is well felted together and is very sturdy now. I feel it looks less casual. Here it is with the locks added. I am very happy with how it turned out. It pays to work the wool for as long as it takes and not try to hurry it up. 🙂