Oz and Ends: In Which Felt Continues To Be Delightful

Discovering felt has been good for me.

As I've outlined in previous posts, felt is a forgiving material. And when I say "forgiving" I mean that I can forgive myself for making mistakes and wasting whole sheets of the stuff. I can therefore be free to trial-and-error it up for hours on end, and the only damage done is what I inflict on myself with my mean-spirited orange-handled scissors. (Seriously, how do you get cut by CLOSED SCISSORS?)

The simpler mobiles I make (namely the floral ones featured in my last post) take an average of a day to complete. That's because I know every step of the process inside and out and the only roadblock is finger-fatigue. But with the new designs, mobiles can take anywhere from two days to a week to get everything just right. And since felt is so low-pressure, it's no big deal to pull your mistakes to bits and start over until you find something that works. I did that this morning with a piece I've been working on for two days. I'm shockingly un-devastated. It's a nice change!

I'm making a Wizard of Oz mobile. It's a tiny little tornado with Dorothy's house, a tree, a cow, and a broom-riding witch flying around it.

Now, I like the idea of this mobile since it's a scene from one of my favorite stories. HOWEVER, I'm still trying to figure out if it's insensitive of me to make a mobile with a tornado in it. I know tornadoes are nothing to laugh at or trivialize. (I've lived in tornado alley for most of my life. My childhood house was badly damaged by one many years ago. The neighbor's couch is still at the bottom of our pond.) But this particular twister is essentially a character in the Wizard of Oz story, and an important one at that. So I'm going to tentatively proceed with it. If I'm lucky, it'll be interpreted as a scene from a classic story and not an affront to tornado victims. Very much not my intention.

I'm planning a second Oz mobile either way. This one is going to feature poppies and rainbows and glittery ruby slippers (with an option of silver slippers for the literary purists) and possibly Professor Marvel's hot air balloon at the top. I've already got the poppies started!

Stay tuned for more literary-themed mobiles in the future! I've got a long, loooonnnng list of mobiles to make. Running tally is somewhere over 30 different designs to try. I'll post a pic of the list next time so you can see what I've gotten myself into, and I'll also be posting pics on my progress as I muddle my way through it. Should be loads of fun.

Thanks so much for stopping in! I hope you're doing well, and I appreciate you. Have a gorgeous day! :) 

Millie