My Creative Space... printing felt

I've been a real grasshopper this week, hopping from one thing to the next. Firstly, I have still been working on my collage (collective groan!) but in my defence I will say that stitching text on paper is a very time-consuming endeavour. I don't think anything has taken me so long since I hand-sewed all the sequins on this top. Anyway, I was then totally sidetracked by the Coco Chanel movie and started hunting through my fabric stash looking for jersey to sew into a top. Before that actually happened, though, I made this brooch. Finally, the biggest distraction of all... I discovered via Poppytalk that the amazing Lucie Summers, of Etsy Summersville fame, had started screen printing on felt! Wow! I was totally blown away - why had I never thought of this before? What an incredible thing to do! So, I set to work experimenting...

I didn't have a stencil suitable in size for my little felt pieces so I decided to experiment with wood blocks and lino cuts. (The lino cuts really didn't work!) The wood blocks were perfect for the felt, maybe because it already has a nice bit of 'give' in it.

Something that took me by surprise was the differences in quality of my humble felt squares. See in the pic below how the blue felt on the right isn't as tight a weave (or something!) because the block print is so fuzzy?

There is generally a lot more fuzziness to the texture and I had to tweezer off some errant strands but overall I was pretty happy... and then... I tried to heat seal the fabric dye... what a disaster!!! The dye turned a strange yellowy colour and the felt went a bit funny too, so I only sealed a couple of them. Anyway, I didn't want to throw it away so I started stitching around the pattern and I think it's turned out okay. Could be another brooch in the making?

If anyone else has been experimenting with printing felt I'd love to hear how you got on with it! It's the heat sealing that seems to be the problem for me - all suggestions gratefully received!

I think Kirsty is away on holidays and there's no central point for finding all the Creative Spaces today, but just in case she takes pity on us and does a special posting, you can find her site here.