Laundry sheep to Rabbit

I’ve been experimenting with lots of wool work since the beginning of January. Initially I focused on funding a new piece of equipment (a drum carder from an Oregon company) by creating needle felted wool dryer balls. Halfway through this “laundry sheep” project, I gave in and bought the equipment. Arms, shoulders and back muscles are already thanking me for this choice! Three orders remain on the books to produce, thus  completing the majority of funding. Fingers crossed on accomplishing them before heading on another adventure early in February.

Natural white wool is beautiful, but color grabs my attention. Last summer during the Black Sheep Gathering (an event focused on all things woolly) I couldn’t resist purchasing jacquard acid dyes. First dye experiment was a crimson that went very pink, perfect for valentine hearts. Second dye was a chestnut and gold ochre combination. The results are in the above photo. This color combination started screaming for an animal creation which lead to a rabbit.

Since we just passed lunar new year, my brain’s been thinking about the Chinese zodiac calendar. Year of the rabbit is four years away. How about creating all of the zodiac animals? I regret missing Ai Weiwei’s zodiac animals when they passed through Eugene and Portland. Maybe I should create my own!

Rabbits are a very comfortable creature to start with and Rat is following quickly. Then Ox, Tiger and the rest! Challenges keep the brain working. 🙂

On a color side note: I combined chestnut with an Oatmeal MC1 batting from Living Felt. I didn’t work the colors together super well and that gave the stronger variation in the face. The rat is a combination of Coal MC1 from LF and chopped up natural white from my wool processing to achieve the blended gray. The core wool is from my own processing.