Going blue

I’m glad that this election season is coming to a close with hopefully a tidal wave of blue to wash away the pain we’ve experienced. Blue brings a calming feeling, memories of intense blue skies, the blue of a lake or ocean. Calm without the fighting. So, I’ve embraced blue for the new project. Wet felting is an experiment for depleting the overwhelming wool stash piled around the studio. I dyed up 4 oz of roving and was pretty happy with the color. The deep blue was a mix of turquoise, violet, periwinkle, and a few flicks of hot fuchsia. The lavender was a dye pot exhaust: the main batch of wool didn’t take up all the dye so I needed to toss in another round of roving to mop up the excess color. Hazel is modeling the size after round one of felting. I took it a bit farther in order to create a denser material for sewing. I might attempt a cat cave on the next round, but possibly too ambitious at this stage. Wet felting takes quite a lot of body work.

I’ve learned quite a lot with this larger attempt. First: don’t use the wool roving straight from the bag/ dye pot. Put it through the drum carder to get the fibers in alignment and not clumped. Second: work in the garage where there’s more elbow room. Definitely not a kitchen counter job! Third: if you discover holes or thin places, needle felt back over to patch and know that another round of wet felting is always an option. Hopefully I will get better with more practice to achieve a more consistent material without holes.

MeMe kitty hasn’t been a happy camper over the past several weeks. For those of you who might not know, she’s well over 16 years and has kidney disease. I took her in Monday for a full work up and they checked off quite a long list before discovering high blood pressure! Cats are normally around 150, often going to 160 during a vet visit. She was at 220! No wonder she’s had that pained look and howling at all hours day and night. While she was in they drained her giant cyst. Her fighting weight is even lower than July, putting her at 7.6 pounds. I think that’s feather weight category for the kitties. The behemoth girls are almost 16 pounds! Not a fair fight, but they still happen. I’m hoping the new blood pressure med can help sooth her body and gain weight.

I’m off to finish scouring the final batch of wool for the season. It sat in the outdoor vat for over a month and is super stinky! The forecast is looking like rain for days to come so the drying might have to come indoors if we can handle the smell. I still have 4 fleece waiting for a wash but they will have to wait for spring!