Spiraling Vessel

Front facing Spirals

Spirals

Inverted Bottom

Resting Sprial

Standing Sprial

This vessel is made of an undyed, Icelandic Lambs fleece intertwined with a green, violet, rayon scarf sandwiched between all white silk, alpaca, and merino fibers and after felting and fulling, the piece measured 35 inches x 14 inches. If you have been following my blog for the past two years, you will know I am intrigued with spirals and a type of Japanese Shibori dying, which means pole wrapping. The fabric is spiraled around the pole with twine, linen or a strong yarn spiraled around the fabric. Then, to create the design one scrunches the fabric and the portions that are bound with the twine are in the interior and create a lovely bound resist while the outer portions is ready to accept dye. I prefer this technique using indigo vat dye, a dye that oxidizes when hit by the air and turns a deep indigo color and it tends not to migrate like water-based dyes.

Keeping that technique in mind, I slipped the felted/fulled vessel over a section of PVC piping, tying the end but not before pressing the bottom up into the pipe. I am inspired how wine bottles are created with this type of indentation at bottom up into the wine bottle. The PVC is twirled around with the twine spaced approximately ¾ inch apart, and once five inches is bound, and then it was scrunched tightly together. Then, more wrapping and scrunching until reaching the lip. It was formed by pulling and stretching (about 1.5 inches wide).  The scrunch on the pole is reduced 2/3 of the pre-scrunched felt.

The scrunch was so thick the wool required 48 hours to air-dry completely compared to the normal 18 hours.  This technique gives nice visual pleasure.  The finished dimensions are 11 inches high by 18 inches and the lip measure 22 inches in circumference. It stood completely straight  compressing the rings but I encouraged it to tilt to the side to convey a bit of an attitude.