Felting a Cell

Last week I went to a wonderful bead store and it reminded me that last year I began a beading project I hadn’t posted about yet. It’s a “work in progress”, but I thought you might find the journey so far interesting:

Quite a while ago I saw a post on Facebook that amazed me. I included a screenshot at the bottom of my post that week and here it is again (the commentary at the beginning was part of the Facebook post):

Isn’t this just screaming to be beaded??? I actually wrote Harvard University and obtained permission to make a piece of beaded fiber art based on this amazing photo. I can’t imagine how anyone could think that something this tiny and complex could happen by chance. God’s imagination is infinite!

Well, shortly thereafter I took a class in wet wool felting (click here to read that post) and decided that would be a great background for my version of the beaded cell. I’d already collected a variety of wool roving, and I had the needed tools. Wet felting is messy, so I made a pattern, gathered my roving

and a piece of black wool batting for the base, and headed out to the driveway.

I laid the batting out on a towel with plastic underneath, and the different color areas were marked off with a black yarn.

Then the fun of choosing colors and placement began:

Once I had all the batting covered, soap was mixed with very hot water and sprinkled over everything.

Then the wool was rolled up in the towel and I began to roll it back and forth.

You would be amazed how much rolling it takes to felt wool together. Boy, were my arms tired and sore! But I persevered and was pleased with the results.

It had shrunk up a bit and some areas had migrated, but overall I “felt” it would work (bad pun, I know).

I let it dry and decided it was time to gather up beads and embellishments. I began the beading and I think I’ll save that for next week’s post. Stay tuned!