This piece is titled "Memories of summer days" but it bears a second name "u babuni" or “at grandma’s”.

This work is extremely personal to the artist, to quote her: “as I layered the colored wool and silks, strand by strand, it brought me closer to my childhood and stirred many cherished memories. The sounds of birds, sweet scents of pines, sights and feelings of my youth came flooding in and imprinted themselves on this little cottage tucked away in the fields. The summer days were long and stretched from the morning rise to the glowing red sunsets, but the sun was not the only source of warmth, the other was the loving heart of my dear grandmother. Although those days have long passed and time has taken this dear person away from me, their essence remains safely in the little cottage among the fields and the tall mallow flowers that are so characteristic of the central and eastern European villages where I grew up. This piece is by far the most melancholic, it reflects my longing for days lost, the people I loved, and the place of my birth.

I hope that this piece will also speak to you and transport you to the time when you were a child, free, happy and on the prowl for an adventure. Perhaps, when you gaze upon it, you will find your longing reflected in this scene and your best memories captured in the tapestry”.

The “memories of summer days” represents a mixed media felted tapestry. In the cottage scene, the artist utilized merino wool, wooly curls, silk, silk gauze, silk ribbons for the grasses and beads. The process of completing this piece involved multiple steps.  The very first of which required wet-felting. This is accomplished by layering already-dyed strands of raw wool and silk several times over, to arrive at the rough image. The piece is then felted together using warm water and soap during which the artist rolls the work up that is sandwiched between pieces of bubble wrap, felts it between the palms of her hands, then scrunches and throws it for eight to ten hours, until the flyaway strands are felted into one cohesive piece.  Then the tapestry is rinsed with water and vinegar to restore the proper PH balance of the wool and silk, and it is left to dry for several days. Once the base tapestry is ready, a dry felting technique is applied to add, enhance or adjust the finer details of the work, before moving to the next stage of free motion quilting.  For this, a swatch of white interfacing material is affixed to the back of the piece, to allow the quilting needle to run and pierce the thick wooly textures. Finally, the work is completed with hand embroidery, which is when all the little details come to life, using silk ribbons, textures, yarn, silk cocoons, beads, gems, lampwork, and more. Typically, each felted tapestry represents anywhere between one to three months of intensive labour from beginning to its’ completion. This cottage scene took approximately three months to create.

This piece has been purposefully left unframed as it is a mixed media work and it is meant to be experienced not just by sight but also through touch. The fine interplay of luxurious fibers, textures and colors are a delight to the eye and to the touch. During the process of wet felting, Dominika can mostly control the loose wool and silk strands and what they do; however, there is always a degree of suspense of how the different fabrics will react to the hours of rolling, scrunching, rubbing and throwing. The results are the natural waves and ripples that leave the edges irregular, ultimately resulting in a very liberal expression.