Today's art quest: felting with poodle hair

I took a felting class the other day at Artsplace Cheshire, and decided to do some felting with poodle hair.  After all, what else was I going to do with the big bag of dog hair that I brought home from the groomer a few weeks ago?  I decided to replicate this image of our standard poodle, Java, nosing around in eel grass on Cape Cod:

After almost six hours of laying wool roving onto a background of silk gauze, applying soap and water, wrapping the piece around a noodle and rolling it, my result still wasn't ready for prime time.

So, the next day, at home, I continued to work.

That's a big bag of dog hair next to me on the bench.

It's coming along.  And I've learned something:  poodle hair felts together really quickly.  Look at this ball.  I was going to use it for a fluffy tail-end.  Instead, it felted together so so fast it's as hard as a golf ball, and there's no way I'm going to be able to tease those hairs apart to make a tail-end.

Right now I'm adding extra roving, and green yarns, to make the grass in front of the dog, and needle-felting that in.

Felting with poodle hair may be strange, but get this:  the guy next to me in the felting class was making a felted lining for a helmet that he was making to specifications described in the Iliad.  He even brought a copy of the Iliad with him to the class to read to anyone who was interested.  He said he was going on a hero's quest.

Quest on, artists!