Felted Beaded Flower

This is my first attempt at making a hand felted flower. The technique was obtained from Carol Huber Cypher's book, Hand Felted Jewelry and Beads.

It is labor intensive but can be a real work of art with practice. I started by taking thin wisps of wool roving and layering them - adding colors where my amateur eye thought they should go. I used a dark blue for the petal, green on the underside, and added lighter blue, a little pink and yellow at the center. This is all place on bubble wrap and soapy water is poured over it. Saran wrap was then placed over the top and the bubbles squished out. Then the felting process began by rubbing a wet plastic bag over the top for 5 minutes. After this the flower was rolled in different directions over a rolling pin for several minutes to full it. A little more forming goes into it after this step. After drying I sewed black bangle beads, gold and variegated purple beads onto the center. I will probably add beads to the sides of some of the petals.

This is a project I will try again as the product can be quite beautiful with a little practice. Next time I will use more wool roving and make a smaller flower. Will do a little more research too and look for more detailed instructions on flower details.