A beautiful sunny morning to felt outside in my 'felting kitchen'. The birds are curious, right above me is a nest. Flower buds are swelling. A squirrel runs along the fence to see what I am doing. I love this long warm season of wet felting outside.
I collect the colors of wool I need and smile at the pile of soft hues. I always think they look like a wooly cake when they pile up layer by layer. Then the water magically shrinks it all! I love the alchemy of colors merging with wet felt. My hands glide over the soapy wet wool. A rhythm occurs, my heart beats joyfully. I am working on a bunch of orders for my spring/summer story apron, which is my favorite instant puppet theater! I love knowing these will go out around the world to enchant the children.
Being outside, there is a felting freedom, a table to felt on, and all the extra water can flow over the felting pan and into the ground. The sun shines, birds sing around me, water for rinsing is in a bucket nearby. I hang the felt tops on a clothes line and sit back and look at them....with the sun behind then, they look a bit like stained glass.
I do love the process of wet felting, of bringing loose fibers into a beautiful practical whole. I love this particular kind of puppet story apron for telling tales to young children because it has one primary pocket where puppet characters can live, and come out to to enliven the story. Such as a little bunny who has his burrow on a hill, or a ladybug waking from a good sleep in a tulip flower. What magic it is for the children to see them peek out and come to life as they play out the story line. Once hidden, now seen and enlivened!
I think the many pocket story apron is wonderful for community events, a May festival, or harvest fair... where a roaming storyteller will share many tiny tales to enchant a group of children who come and go. But for a classroom, or one child who experiences one story, lovingly brought to life with puppets, ahhhh, this is what I love. One story, one deep breath in and out. This is the more profound reason I love this one pocket story apron.
I also love how children light up when I take my story apron out of a basket, and open it up, saying, 'hurray, it is story apron day'. The anticipation is golden as I put the apron on, saying, oh today we have green green grass, and a meadow of flowers, or 'look at the snow all over the ground, and how the mountain tops are covered with snow too. The colors indicate something about the story to come.
I also love the ease of putting on my story apron in an instant, and there it is, all the puppet theater I need for my story. An instant puppet story theater.
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If this intrigues you, join us for our annual online Summer Boot Camp, starting July 9 this summer, on the theme of this Puppet Story Apron... and all it's wonders. Making it, learning how to use it for wonderful story presentation with puppets. And yes, a bonus course too, on dyeing silk in my multicolored, over-dye method.
Click Here for details. It is a 6 week course, with additional bonus course. You keep this course, so can refer to it anytime. Payment plans available. And perhaps best of all, you can work on it at your own best schedule.