How I felt leaves

When I started felting, I never ever cut or stitched anything, this has changed over the years. I know not everybody will agree and my recent wallhanging 'Remember last summer' came back from the Creative Fiber Festival with the comment 'attachment of the flowers let this piece down'. It didn't get selected because I have sewn them on and not felted everything in one piece.
I need a lot of flowers and leaves for my big wallhangings, so I developed a process how to do them efficiently. For me it works :)
First I do a big piece of prefelt

Can you see, I used the first time my new palm washboard and it is great! You can also see a bottle 'megafilzer', which I still had from years ago and thought I might try it again. It is nice to use, but not really necessary, I still like the sunlight soap the best.

While the felt is drying under the carport, Billy occupied my work table. He is very happy, that I have all wallhangings at home at the moment. They are only for him of course

I forgot to take photos when I cut out the leaves. I use a small roller cutter for that. Then they get another treatment with water, soap and rubbing

this time I use the small washboard

first gentle and then a bit more forced

and the final shaping is still done by hand

time for drying

The final touch is done with the sewing machine

I am so happy to have found an old Bernina for a good price, it works so much better than  the Janome  Onestep I had for the freemotion stitching. 

adding veins

finished!

Once all the leaves are done, I will check them again, tidy up threads and shave any 'wild' bits off. 

I am very grateful to Lisa Klakulak for all she taught us in the workshop. It had been a very stressful weekend and I am not following everything. But I am certainly more concerned about tidy appearance and try to produce a good felt. She also showed us the small roller cutter, that is so handy! But instead of endless rolling I use now the palm washboard, and depending on how delicate the product is, I spin it in the washing machine, that removes more water and speeds up the process.