For my past machine needle felting forays, I have been using prefelt for the base. It is quite thick and it gets expensive to get all the colors you want. I read someplace on the web about using water soluble stabilizer as a base for creating flat felt.

Instead of running out and buying some, I decided to look in my drawer of stabilizers. And low and behold, there was a huge sheet of Superior Water Soluble Stabilizer.

I cut a piece and laid out some fibers horizontally and vertically and started needle felting. It worked like a charm. The first photo is the front side and here is the back.

Nice! Here it is after soaking in water to remove the stabilizer.

I want to do a large piece, similar to the Twelve x Twelve piece that I did, for the special exhibit that our guild is doing at the APWQ show in Tacoma in August.

My other activity this afternoon was to try painting the gray shibori with some watered down black paint to see if I could make it grayer. It worked.

Maybe it is too gray. I might have to try again with more water.

The old deck is gone!

I have to remember that I can’t walk out of the dining room to the deck!! I think I need some of that yellow do not enter tape.

Mark and Jayme arrived at lunch time yesterday. We had a fun family dinner at a local pizza restaurant.

Miles loves rhubarb crisp, which was the dessert on the menu last night.

He was not happy about sharing it with the rest of us! Actually, we had two for the table.

Today, M and J packed up their backpacks and headed for Seattle and then they are going on to the San Juan Islands to go camping and kayaking. The will come back here next week to spend 4th of July week-end with us. Then, Jayme is going back to work on her summer research project while Mark builds our new deck.