Felting a caftan

Our intrepid friend Elsbeth came all the way from Maryland this weekend and we felted--boy did we felt. We're working on a caftan for her Turkish outfits for SCA based off a caftan I had seen in July made by Mehmet Ghigiz and Theresa May Obrien. Their's was on silk and had cashmere for the white places--totally incredible piece. This weekend was a really exciting experience and I can't wait to do this again. Do to time and resource limitations we only got half the caftan laid out but it's a good start and she's at a point where she can keep working on it at home. It's huge with about 5 lbs of wool for the one side. The wool came from Lori Flood of Spinster's Treadle and was an excellent quality and price. I can't wait to order some more. We mixed Elsbeth's merino with my norwegian felting batt from Lori's shop and it worked beautifully. Here's some pics of the process...