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Do you remember the first time you saw coloured fleece ?

What IS that ?  Then you reached out & stroked it (everybody does)…

You wondered, “what do I do with it”?  The answer to that question depends on where you were when you discovered this natural wonder…

If you were with spinners, they told you to spin it, felters would say it’s for felting & little children say it’s for amazing, cuddly playing !

No matter where you were or who you were with then, if you love colour & texture, this simple & beautiful project is for you, now!

What is a Fleece Transparency —  it’s fluffy, vibrant yumminess, if you ask me!
It’s like painting without paints – & the best part?

Anyone can do it !

{Get your FULL Fleece Transparency Tutorial at the end of this post!}

(A word to the wise…)

Before, I go much further I’ve got to explain what fleece really means.  Somewhere over the years, people have started referring to almost any un-spun fibre as fleece.  Actually, it refers to the hair of a fibre-bearing animal, such as an alpaca, yak, camel, mohair goat & of course, sheep – in its unprocessed, fresh from the animal state !

So, whatever you want to call it – it looks like this  once it’s been tidied up a little & is available in natural (animal) colours & in many dyed hues as well.  Sometimes, you may find it loose & others it’s wound up loosely into a ball or even braided.  As long as you can pull the strands apart, you can use it for this project!

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To celebrate the coming of fall, my children & I each made a Transparency .

 To get into the mood, we read our favourite fall book, * Wild Child.  I had already gathered the supplies we needed & we got started by cutting & painting our frames right away.

The next day, once they’d completely dried – I re-read the story.  Afterwards, we began our Transparencies.

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There was much discussion about who wanted what colour & lots of experimentation with layering the fleeces & holding them up to the light to see what colours we could make.

As we worked, we tried to combine our autumnal feelings  we had from being out & about with those we felt while reading the book (the pictures are VERY unusual & exciting).

Here’s what we came up with…

this is my son’s transparency –

(btw -we didn’t work with the book open – I took our pieces once they were finished & found pages in the book that had a similar feeling to our finished pieces – amazing, eh?)

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and my daughter’s – she wanted to depict a person as well as her feelings –

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and mine.

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As you can see, we each drew completely different inspirations (colours, shapes, feelings) from the same book!

We decided to stick our transparencies on the kitchen windows,
so we could watch the light come through them but you could also make them into greeting cards, prop them up on your nature table or sandwich them between 2 pieces of glass in a clip-frame to make them more permanent.  (They will fade in the light if they’re left for too long, especially if you use plant-dyed fibres.)

What did my children learn from this project ?  Lots!

• how to measure & draw a rectangle within a rectangle (to create the frame)
• how to follow a line neatly while cutting through thick cardboard
• patience while waiting for the frames to dry
• they practiced basic colour theory – mixing hues to create new colours
• basic spinning techniques (manipulating unspun fibres)
• pre-planning their designs in their heads before they began their projects
• considering various sources of inspiration ( & choosing what spoke to them)
• & the wonderful feeling of satisfaction upon viewing their completed projects!
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To download your Project Plan

– click HERE

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Be Happy ♥ Make Stuff !

 

 

www.HandworkHomeschool.com