Amanda Fiebing

This set of felted mushrooms was a gift I was most proud of giving this past holiday season. Its interesting, I have never eaten a mushroom myself (well, maybe fragments here and there against my knowledge or will).  From first sight of the fungus I knew the meaning of repulsion as instinct. Their shape, their name, the idea of eating a ‘fungus’, the smell,  their smell when cooking; all things that put me off of mushrooms. Ew, yuck, patooey.

I must say, though, that this winter at the produce stand on Beacon Hill something changed when I was picking out some lemons. I saw a previously unseen beauty in these shriveled and sickly pale gilled fungi sitting next to the lush citrus fruits. Suddenly it clicked, the perfect gift for my mushroom-loving sister, Kathryn of KAM gear in Ballard, WA; felted mushrooms.

fly amanita & white button

black chantrelle & white button

black chantrelle & white button
Photos by Henry Rose

More are on the way for another commission. More photos to come.

Tags: Art, fake food, Felt, needle felting, sculpture, soft sculpture, wool.

Here’s a little project I’ve been working on. What a novel idea to post my projects as they happen, not just when they are for sale. Hmmm

My long time friend Elizabeth is celebrating her 25th birthday today. I feel that after knowing her for so long (the better side of like 13 years) I should take this opportunity to reaffirm how much I love her. When you love someone its important to tell them early, and often. So, I created a soft sculpture in honor of our relationship. Two beautiful breasts representing our womanhood and two special items tucked inside each *ahem ahem* breast. The first, a small representation of my heart, what it would looks like so she can see it for real! The second takes a little explanation, and for those of you whose eyes glaze over every time I talk about my cats can ignore this and just look at the pictures. This little grey heart is made of the fur of another beast that also loves Elizabeth. I joke about Ben, the cat, loving people and being sort of a hussy but really, Ben absolutely loves Elizabeth. He might like her more than he likes his food dish, and that is saying a lot. Sometimes I wonder if I’m supposed to move him out of the room so he stops bugging her when she comes over.

Anyway, the rest of this sculpture is made from wool roving that I needle felted. I started each breast by wrapping dark blue roving around loose wads of newspaper. I chose blue because they actually become vessels at the end, and I have a huge amount of it. Mostly the newspaper is a cost saver but I have decided that for a good texture the newspaper should only be used if you’re planning to use a lot of wool over it because you can definitely tell its in there. Once I’d built up all the felt I wanted with layers and a lot of color mixing I dug in with my fingers and removed the newspaper and wrapped it again with a layer of roving and then placed it back inside to achieve and essential tautness. If there is too much slack the piece will lose its shape. I left the backsides of each piece open to allow them to be vessels for the two special items. The full sculpture:

Tags: birthday, custom, Elizabeth, Felt, personal, present, project, sculpture, soft sculpture, wool.

I had a Polaroid camera I found at Value Village that I naively played around with. Now the film is, very sadly, being discontinued and becoming increasingly more costly as it fades. For a photography novice such as myself, digital photography is tremendously more forgiving as I learn. So, I won’t be shelling out the big bucks some new Polaroid film. I will leave this beautiful film to the truly dedicated and say my farewell with this little project.

To see larger sizes please visit my flickr

To all the weeping Polaroid Patrons keep on shakin’ it.

Tags: photography, sculpture.

This sculpture is very soft all the way to its core. (har har) Not wanting a rough texture I delicately the wool roving to the top and bottom of the shape just as it was. I bet it would be very easily destroyed if my cats were able to get their little paws on it. Of the fruits as a whole they prefer to go after the stems.

Tags: Art, cat, Felt, sculpture.

Shown here, the completed branch is backlit by a string of LED holiday lights.

This branch is full. Since the core of this project is decaying I thought it wise to limit the weight of my blossoms. In its entirety, it fits within the space of my apartment, however I’m considering breaking it up to make it a smaller and more dense cluster.

Tags: Art, handmade paper, paper, sculpture.