Can't find any Autumn Leaves...

My friend lives in Canberra and recently put some photos up on facebook of her son playing in amongst the autumn leaves.  The colours are stunning.  I showed Ruby the pictures, but it's all a bit foreign to her.  Here I am trying to explain that it's Autumn, and in many places the leaves change into beautiful colours of yellow, orange, red, rust, brown and gold.  But, she just doesn't get it.   When she goes outside, all she sees is green, none of these other colours, and the trees aren't loosing their leaves !  She's probably wondering what on earth I'm talking about.  We've looked everywhere around here, and we can't find any autumn leaves anywhere.  So I've decided to make some and bring a bit of Autumn into our home.

I gathered some Autumn coloured wool fleece to make a wet felted mat...

and layed them out in 3 layers of blended colours on top of a piece of bubble wrap (bubble side up). 

The top and bottom layer were layed horizontally, the middle layer vertically. 

Next I put a piece of netting over my fleece and poured a bit of hot water into the middle. 

I then squeezed the water outwards, making sure every fibre of wool was wet, adding more water as needed, but not too much, and added a few drops of dish soap.

Then I gently patted the fleece down and rubbed it until I could see that the fleece was starting to felt.

I replaced the netting with another sheet of bubble wrap,  bubble side down this time!

Then I rubbed in circular motions all over the place...to get the felting process in motion.

Finally, I rolled the bubble wrap up in the towel, like sushi, and rolled back and forth, for ages, and ages, turning the felt piece by 90 degrees every 50 or so rolls. 

The felt will shrink in the direction you roll it, so you need to change the direction to keep your shape even. 

When you think you're done, keep rolling! and then keep rolling some more !!  Your felt should shrink and be about 1/3 the original size.

When you are done, rinse your felt out in cold water and leave it to dry!  This is the front...

and here's the back...I think I'll be able to cut some nice leaves out of this when it dries !