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This Dragon Rug was designed and felted by my niece, Neysa Russo. She'll be offering a class here this winter on her approach to this technique. Because of time limitations, you'll not be making a rug, but a wall hanging, pillow, or chair seat cover (approx. 18" x 18"). Keep your eye on the class listings for the dates...I'll be confirming the dates soon. Be sure to click on the photos to see the design in greater detail...it's really impressive.

My sister's and I, along with two nieces, made rugs one winter. We spent 2 long, back breaking days each felting a thick backing plus then each felting another large (or two) thick sheets of dyed wool. We then cut out traditional Russian motifs my sister had and then we swapped off "positive" and "negative" images of the motifs from each others' colors so that all our rugs have elements that we each made and then shared. After a very long weekend of felting, we took our rugs home and spent the rest of the winter stitching the motifs onto the backings we had felted. The rugs were featured in Interweave Press' Felt magazine in the fall '08. As you can see, it's Chloe's favorite place to rest....perhaps because it gives her full view of the kitchen and all food preparation!

This rug, a la "osman" style technique, I did during a class here at the store with Theresa May O'Brien. It too was a strenuous weekend, but because it is a different style required no stitching when all was said and done.

A rug I made for my sister Robin for her birthday a couple of years ago. Whenever I take a workshop, I immediately (within in the following couple of weeks) make another 2 or 3 of whatever the workshop was about so that I can reinforce what I learned and explore new ideas. When taking Theresa's osman rug class here in January, I kept thinking about this sheep motif the whole time I was laying out the leaves (above) so this was the first of several osman style rugs I did right after that class. Since Roby's birthday was coming up and she is passionate about everything wool, but doesn't have sheep herself, I decided it should be for her.

My niece Neysa needle felted this rug. Actually, the base is wet felted and then she needled the fantastic design onto the base.