Lume di Luna Designs
Fiber-works (featuring "green" wool)
A few years ago, I discovered fiber. Never one to sit with my hands idle, I came across a felting kit in a tiny craft store. You can only imagine my delight when I found that fibers could be manipulated in so many ways! Add heat, water and friction, and you will end up with the first "cloth" of our ancestors. Jab it repeatedly with a sharp, barbed needle and you can make sculptures of amazing detail, or work it into fabrics like paint.
There was just one drawback. Wool is not cheap. It's painstaking process to bring it from beast to market. Also, I couldn't say that I was enthralled with the limited color palette. After all, you can't mix blue with red to get purple.
But, my solution came in an unexpected manner. I discovered that many local students and farmers simply threw away unwanted fleece when it came to the Spring shearing. All that delectable fiber was ending up in local landfills! So, I went on a one-person rescue mission. I hauled bag after bag of raw fleece home. I taught myself how to properly pick and scour fleece. I bought tubs of low-impact acid dye and started to dye my own colors. It then can be dried, combed and carded into glorious perfection.
Oops. That tiny purple flower looked so delicious, but it seemed to send Hendrix on an unexpected psychedelic trip. (this particular sculpture took 16 hours of needle-poking love!)
This is Bernie. He is just learning how to breathe fire, but its tricky business for a little dragon, taking the upmost of concentration!