I am rusher, doing everything at high speed.  Is this a problem?  I walk, read and talk fast and I can wet felt fast. It is a great time saving skill !  So why have I come  to the conclusion that when making felt –  slower is better.

AS a result of this conclusion I am working on a personnel slowness re-education program.

I started on my journey at a workshop with Jeanette Appleton. She makes beautiful felt pieces very slowly and thoughtfully and I greatly admire her  work.
But it is not easy for us naturally born rushers to slow down.  Here an example of my slowing down reeducation process in action.

I love the vibrant orange silk embedded in this piece of flirty felt : the shadowy hidden depths below and the sea green spirals are like thought patterns.

But and its a big but this felt screamed out at me that it was incomplete and I did not know what to do with it.

So I hid this felt away.

NOT thinking and NOT doing is very hard for a rusher.

But I now know  the only solution is to put the unfinished piece away. Leave a pause of a few weeks and return to look at your felt with new eyes and your refreshed thoughts .   Do this as many times as it takes and the results will be wonderful.
After a few thinking cycles it came to me that this felt piece was just  lonely.  She – not an it a she – needed to be a part of a family, she needed more warmth and a friend to cuddle up to.
I decided to use all the same glorious colours and stitches and make the flirty orange felt piece a more serious but related sister felt piece.

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Here is the sister piece being made using lots of prepared pre- felt

The two being stitched together

Well it was a transformation I was proud of. The two felt pieces fitted together and complimented each other perfectly.

I see the thought patterns repeated and echoed through the circles and stitching.  The colours blend. There are subtle undertones and zingy colours, it is silky and smooth and warm and woolly all at the same time and I LOVE it.

So my advice to all you felters out there is slow down , let your felt pieces mature out of sight and great things will happen. If I can do it I am sure you can .