Today on a grand breakfast and shopping trip, my friend came across this box of 100% natural alpaca, from the Peruvian Andes. One package contained many pieces of soft, yet appealingly coarse fabric and the other contained alpaca fibers, perfect for needle felting.

Since our work this week in Jane LaFazio’s class, Art  Quilt Explorations, deals with felt and mola-style designs, I thought these packages would be a practical addition to this project. I’m currently using wool felt purchased from Joggles and it’s delightful, but this alpaca is marvelous, coarser and less processed. The colors are paired which will help me in the execution of my design, Chinese Gongs. And I’ll needle felt some right away into another piece I’m working on. Here’s the photos:

Last night I finished the second puffy, embellished heart. Since part of my goal was to complete the project in a timely manner, the heart doesn’t carry as many embellishments as I’d like. I need to create a piece on which I give myself permission to go wild with embellishments.

I am pleased with the heart!!

The second picture is a fabric landscape I created for a Joggles class with Jane LaFazio, “Art Quilt Explorations.” This is my second landscape and I played with free motion quilting designs in small spaces – great practice for me. I usually stick to what I do best – simple meandering. I had a great time filling in those spaces which are now crying out for beads and some hand embroidery. Maybe some silk ribbon embroidery??

All in all, a good day’s work – with more fun to come!!