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Found Art

Written by Robin Cornwell

Saturday, 03 March 2007

Instructions
Found Art - Instructions

1. Needle felt the wool roving into a hand shape, using a cookie cutter as a pattern, and some swirled wool details. (Variation: Skip the felting and simply cut pleasing shapes from a textured material.)

2. Stitch the felted hand to the doily.

3. Place the doily onto the plaid wool fabric and machine stitch it down.

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Supplies
“Collage” a Wall Hanging or Pillow

They say that collecting things is a Yankee trait. I grew up in New Hampshire and collected what most kids in the country do: pretty rocks, feathers and sea glass from occasional summer visits to the ocean. Later in my teen years, I moved on to beads for jewelry-making, more feathers and macramé jute.

Robin Cornwell Embelishments

    My penchant for these collections has grown quite steadily along with my years. I don’t collect, though, by happenchance. I go looking for this stuff! I visit the local swap shop almost daily in the summers–too bad it’s closed on Thursdays. And, of course, I eagerly await the arrival of the local weekly to plot out my yard sale route for the weekend.
   Felting is my newest excuse to collect. Felting simply is the process by which wool fibers bond tightly together to form a thicker, denser material. I can take any 100% wool item, wash it in hot water then dry it and have a “felted” material. I can also felt with wool roving, working by hand or needle. (Information can be found on these processes on the Internet or in the craft section of your local bookstore.)
   I recently created a “studio,” a place with a fancy name to store my collections and it has motivated me to put together a little piece of this with a little piece of that and create beautiful collages! Even if you don’t have a “studio,” you probably have collections similar to mine, so use your treasures and imagination and create art along with me.

Quilting

My textile collages usually start with an “inspiration” piece–old lace, a certain color of cloth that has caught my eye or a linen napkin that needs to be decorated. For this project, I choose some roving, a linen doily, wool plaid from an old skirt I no longer wear and some scrap quilt pieces. The color scheme comes from the plaid.

Wool roving is wool that has been cleaned and carded so that the fibers are all in one direction. It is used for spinning wool yarn and felting and can be purchased in a rainbow of colors. The needles are made especially for this process and have tiny barbs to grab the wool fibers to work them together. Be careful, they are VERY sharp! A wonderful needle felting tutorial can be found at www.craftlog.org/craftlog/archives/001678.html

Robin Cornwell
		About the author:
		Robin has been creating for most of her life, from a small child’s handmade greetings for family and friends, to unique hand made journals, fabric collage, stenciled clothing and her continuous attempt to recycle any interesting form that comes her way. Most recently it is that attempt to reuse and recycle that has had the most impact on her work. She is able to find creative use in the chair spindles, wooden boxes and hub caps. Every available space in her studio is overflowing with dyed yarns and wool, colorful fabric, felted wool from recycled clothing and assorted vintage table linens. Mixing and matching materials and embellishments is a constant in all of her creations. Robin has also been a public school teacher at the middle level for over 25 years, obtaining much of her vitality from her students. She has been a common presenter at regional, state and New England area conferences on the topics of art and the arts in education.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 15 March 2007 )