***NOTICE*** My “Mature Monday” posts are possibly NFSW. They often contain explicit imagery in craft format. Use your best judgement on where you view these! Thanks!
Vigantic Felt Monday!
Every once and a while I get a wild hair and decide to look up moss pasties or glitter merkins, or other fun and interesting things on etsy or pinterest. I’ve decided to start a new blog category, Mature Mondays, where I share the most notable of these gems with you. In the wake of the science march and various womens’ marches I decided to check out etsy’s felted vulva offerings. Not terribly surprisingly, there were more entries under vagina than vulva, and several interesting variations. And I’m here to show you the uh… cream of the crop… so you don’t have to go searching for yourself! (BTW, I totally had Peaches’ song”Vaginoplasty” running through my head while doing this post! That one you do have to google for yourself. 🙂
I found notable creations in several areas: jewelry, ornaments, wall art, plushies, and ring holders. Yup, ring holders!!!
So lets start with the largest category, jewelry:
A classic pink and pearl offering from Woolloom:
The shop, “Woolloom” brings us: “Needle felted vaginas, feminist gifts, smiling cakes and dolls :-)” and is the course of most of my favorite brooches and ring holders. The artist, Aleksandra Melnik, is from the Ukraine and this is her story as from her etsy site :
“The idea to have a small shop grow up from my hobby. I was studying and
working as an artist and in the free time my passion was to felt some
strange animals and dolls out of wool.
Maybe it would never get any bigger, if not the one particular case.
Once we had a lecture at the academy. My drawing professor was talking
another very important thing and drifted to some misogynist statements
about nasty women, calling our genitals dirty, menstruation and birth –
“the curse of the Eve’s daughters”. I started to argue with him(I’m a
feminist by the way) and got very angry..
Tonight after that I tried to calm down and was turning some wool in my
hands as usual. Suddenly I got a desperate wish to make a vagina. And I
made it so beautiful as I see it and mean it to be. Next day I went to
my lectures with a vagina brooch . (It was a clear statement which drives
my professor nuts ) The same day one of my mates asked to make such a
vagina for her to support me. After a month we got our small vagina gang! My feminist friends was asking to make brooches for them and their
friends, presented them as a gift, gave recommendations for me like a
like-minded person. I made a lot of presents and plainly run out of
resources for doing new things. So I first tried to sell some of my
pieces to buy new materials and then decided to open up a small shop.
I really appreciate any item going out! Your reviews are so important
for me, cause I see it as a :support for what I stand for!
I get some supportive messages from different people on Etsy. It makes
me feel such a fulfillment! It means, that what I am doing is not in vain!
Thank u so much for it!”
Who could not love such passion and commitment! Also, WTF with that professor? Anyone who draws should love the complex folds and beauty of the female flower!
Here are a few more of my favorite examples of her work:
Pomegranate-like appearance complete with decorative droplet:
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend:
As well as her brooch and magnet offerings, Woolloom also brings us rings holders like this unique model:
And, of course, smiling cakes!
*****
Moving on, the other large category of felted vulvae and vaginas on etsy are ornaments! Because what better counteracts the phallic x-mas tree than some vaginaments???
Both, iFeltVaginas, and, feltmelons, bring us some stunning examples of the felted vulva ornament.
By iFeltVaginas:
And the crowning flower to our tree:
iFeltVaginas is run by Rayne Grant, from Colorado, USA. Her etsy statement says:
“™iFelt Vaginas has been serving the Four Corners region and is now available online.
In an attempt to bring light to the Divine Feminine and to celebrate the goddess, ™iFelt Vaginas was born out of a dream. After working with making felt puppets (as she is also a puppeteer) and playing around with making felt patches, the creative juices began to flow, so to speak.
Rayne Grant is a mother, a farmer, an artist, a musician, an independent documentary film maker, and a dreamer.
™iFelt Vaginas is just keeping it real. It allows me to zen out while creating something that I feel is in the realm of honoring the Divine Feminine in a fun and fabulous way! Female energy needs not be suppressed….it needs to be expressed.
A % of proceeds goes toward cervical cancer awareness, women’s rights, and the likes.”
Yay for Divine Feminine Fun! 🙂
—–
Feltmelons is the other great purveyor of felted vulva ornaments on etsy. The store is owned by Suzanna McAleenan, from Burlington, ON, Canada, and here “about” section reads:
“Let’s see: I’m a mother to two tow-headed wee girls, and a dog named Haggis.
I’m married to a Scottish fellow: he’s very calm, I’m very excitable, there’s a good balance going on. We met round the local pub 🙂
We live downtown Burlington, Ontario, Canada, where we can walk to the lake, shops, pub, the kids’ school, cafes…it’s idyllic. I was born and raised here, and hope never to leave.
My main shop on etsy is vaginament.etsy.com, and I actively opened feltmelons in January of 2015 as a place to sell other handmade goods.
I also bake gluten-free vegan treats for the locals at www.sweetsillyyak.com.
These hands of mine are best kept busy :)”
Additionally, the cleaver tagline to her store is, “OMG the Viginament! Where the LadyBits are Felt! Get it? Felt! Ha!”
We love a vulva that doesn’t take itself too seriously! 🙂
Some of my particular favorite vaginaments:
Classic Christmas Viginament, snowy but not frigid, sure to get your jingle on!
Oooh shiny! The double pierced vaginament!
*****
Next on the agenda are vulva wall hangings. Some of these aren’t actually felt, but they are still fiber and too fun not to include.
Sara Lederach of StudioLederach brings us a series of, “Womanly rope rugs,” of which this is my favorite:
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A slightly different twist on the vulva wall hanging, Shelby and Miale of TribedBebe, from Chorpus Christie TX, bring us the vulva dream catcher! I’m not certain if this is supposed to encourage or discourage those “interesting” dreams, but it is certainly evocative.
“Inspired by national women’s day, this piece is all Lady, with the delicately band wrapped ring and net, a hand made plush vagina lays across to honor the magic of Woman✨dripping beautiful ribbons and a hand braided felt this piece also literally shows the sign of Woman ♀️ and wrapped rose quartz so ignite all the love we create and share. we are strong we are beautiful we are magic. We are woman ✊”
*****
Last, but certainly not least, we have the category of naught plushies / stuffed animals:
Most notably, naughty pussy, as brought to us by Furburger, owned by Christa May from Manhattan New York.
“Where do baby plush animals come from?” She’ll show you.
Handcrafted and hand sewn vagina on an up-cycled, manufactured plush animal. One-of-a-kind item created by artist Christa May www.christamay.com”
*****
Well, I think I have fully tapped the subject of felted vulvas on etsy, but perhaps I’ll have to revisit the subject in other media in an additional Mature Monday! Enjoy your Monday friends, and I hope it is vigantastic!