Out of boredom, art..more or less

Hot weather of the sort that keeps you from going out walking or getting out and about in general, leads, in my case, anyway, to doing everything you can do at home then running out of stuff to do, and getting bored.

Yesterday, in that frame of mind, all possible gardening and succulent propagating completed, houseplants groomed, reading done, cooking likewise, I was sort of aimlessly scrolling about in Ravelry and found someone asking for help with a soap felting kit she'd finally got around to doing.  Plunging right in to share my total ignorance of this artform, I did join in since it was about roving and I knew a bit about that.

Then one thing led to another, including my wondering what is the point of felting soap.  I'd heard of it, but vaguely wondered why anyone does it.  Turns out it creates a cross between a bar of soap and a face cloth, gentle abrasion, good for your skin, just use as if soap.  Light dawned.  

I also could see a possible use for the rest of the roving ends I had such fun spinning last winter.  To think is to act, and next thing I had studied some of the 356,738, 412 videos on YouTube showing how, and disagreed loudly with several of them, especially the ones that kept the taps RUNNING the whole time they felted, arghghgh. I don't even let the taps run while I'm brushing my teeth, thanks to Jane Goodall. So I'm conditioned to be horrified at wasting water.

Anyway, I assembled what I needed, to wit, bits of roving in various colors, bars of soap, and though you're supposed to have a nylon stocking to enclose the roving covered soap, I didn't but I used a length of nylon net, worked just fine.

Soap wrapped in roving, net ready to wrap over the whole thing

Two bowls of water, one hot, one cold, to alternate, all the better to felt faster, my dear.  And I was off.  Just a few minutes of massaging the little parcel, then removing the net, then massaging further, then put it to dry out once all felted and tight.

First trial, in colors Handsome Son might like, if he wants one

Then the next three, all felted up and wet, drying on the counter

Here's the current collection.  By tomorrow they'll be dry and ready to put in a bowl in the bathroom.  Strongly tempted to make a bowl now....

These are going to be in the downstairs bathroom, as part of the art decor, though I hope they'll be used, too.  While I was doing them, I wondered if the CQteers have ever tried this?  It's really fun to arrange the roving into designs and colors, and they stay put pretty well in the felting process.  Colors didn't run at all.  And not as hard on your hands as you might expect.