iTALENT / Round 4 / Souvenirs of care

What can be done with a piece of wool and one special needle?
If I tell you, that this little elephant is made of a piece of wool with a needle and a little bit of skill and patience, maybe you wouldn't believe me )

The story begins with long days and nights of my son being sick (children are often sick, haha), I had to check on him quite often so there was a lot of free time while he was sleeping, and I've decided to do something for him, armed with a special felting needle and a piece of ivory white wool.

I've started with felting a ball, not yet being quite sure, what it's going to be. The process of felting is long and involves repetitive poking, it appears somehow as kind of meditation, helps to relax and clear the thoughts, I genuinely enjoy it as well as the feeling of touching wool itself. Besides the process of creating something out of something absolutely different is just fascinating! I never know how the result of my work will look like, sometimes I even get what wasn't intended to appear in the end at all ))

So, I was slowly moving forward by attaching a small body to a big head, it's obviosly going to be a big strong animal, who will help my little boy to get better, an elephant!!!! Ivory is perfect for an elephant, and every elephant should have a trunk! But I better start off with massive legs of this royal animal.



You can walk already, don't you? That's amazing, how a piece of wool is turning into something with its personality ). Now I'm working on the trunk, that's a little tricky, it has to have wrinkles of some kind...



And now we're ready for felting huge elephant's ears and a tiny tale, these fine details are important and difficult to felt at the same time, that's why they're my favourite



When you manage to do something, that takes a lot of effort, you feel rewarded!
And now we're left with little details that are actually the key to his character - the eyes, I'm making them of Fimo modeling clay, baking in the oven for about 20 minutes, paint them in black with acrylic paints and glue them to the head.

Voila! Now we'll have a little souvenir of this time spent together, even if it's related to my son being sick, it also will trigger the memory of me taking care of him and keep the warmth of my hands.