After a week of being covered in felting fuzz,
here are the results in no particular order.
Wet Felting
Last week I described how to wet felt. I still plan to do some wet felting, but I want to try on a three dimensional prop- so I can make a hat. How to figure out my head size and find a prop the right shape and hardness to make it? I'll let you know how that goes, but it won't be happening in the near future.
I needle-felted the designs and stems over the wet felted flowers. I like the combination of both wet felting and needle felting. But I admit I'm a complete control freak in the sense that I was not really in control of the shifting of the flowers that took place during the wet felting process. When I make my hat, I may wet-felt the form and then needle-felt the design in place. I may make this into a pillow cover when my course is over but right now it gets submitted in my textile book as a flat piece of work.
(Dry) Needle Felting
This is Hola, the kitty I am currently watching as I house sit for my friend Erin, who is in Budapest at the moment. Hola is fourteen years old and has had a stroke, and is apparently blind in on eye. I found this out one day when I walked up too close to her on her bad side and she gave me a swipe with her extended claws. But we've come to a good agreement, now that Hola has figured out I'm the one who feeds her the good stuff and pets her when she starts meowing about an hour before my alarm goes off in the morning. So I decided that if I were to needle felt a 3-D image, I should try to do Hola since she's a big part of my life right now.
Felted Hola's back
Okay yeah, I know, Hola is much prettier than this bit of fluff! Pretty horrible, please have good laugh at my expense. But this took me longer than I care to admit. Poke-poke-poke-poke. I think I prefer to needle-felt on a 2-D surface. It's also tiny. Like, three inches tall tiny. One of my classmates made a whole plate of felted sushi. He did an excellent job too, by the way! Perhaps next time I should felt stones. They wouldn't be too hard to screw up.
Sweater Felting!
This is a beautiful poncho type shawl that Erin owns. It's been made out of recycled sweaters. It's not felted, but it's a good idea and it's stunning on Erin. I googled felted sweaters to get some good ideas on what to do and the possibilities are pretty much endless. I'll put some links at the bottom of this blog if you are at all interested in doing something with felted sweaters. This would be idea number one.
Sweater Number One!
So this was my nice Merino wool v-neck sweater before I accidentally sent it through the washer and dryer. (Everything I own is black! It was an honest mistake!) But it did felt up quite nicely, much better than the other sweater, which was 100% Shetland wool.
My new bag! The bag itself is the bottom half of my sweater stitched across the bottom. The handle is made from the arms. The dark grey trim is the elasticated waistband from sweater number two. It's all stitched together by hand and I had to top stitch the handle along the sides to keep the handle flat and in place. I may try to put a zipper in the top but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. Anyone out there that can advise me?
The back: a little evil eye as a shout out to Cocoon and Turkey, because it's where I became interested in felting in the first place. Needle felted, of course!
Sweater Number Two!
Okay Hola, time to move!
Why do cats have that weird ability to sit right where you don't really want them?! It is a comfy sweater though. Nice and soft I can't really blame her.
Since it's fall, I decided to do an owl. So I did what people who-don't-know-the-basics-of-how-sewing-works do- I cut out an owl shape, Grinch style. (Remember how the Grinch made his Santy Claus outfit?!)
Then I needle-felted some feather designs on his wings and needle-felted him some eyes. The white parts of his eyes were left over from the trimmed edges my wet felting flower project.
Ta -da! My little owl! I dry felted a triangular nose. His widow's peak (what do you call these on owls?) is made from the cuff of the sweater. But he wouldn't stand up.
So I gave him a big tail to prop him up.
I bet my Asian classmates would love him- he looks so Pokemon!
With all these needles lying around, I made a little ball to stick my needles in as well. Not very creative, but necessary. You can see the felting needle with the hook on the top. It's much bigger than a regular needle, and luckily, I didn't break it this time!
Next Up!
Natural Dyes!
I have to go shopping for all things natural that might give off a little colour. I'm also no longer allowed to wear nice clothes to school because it's gonna get messy!
Mashed up Blueberrries, anyone?
Links to cute felted sweater projects:
Ps. Let me know if you come up with any brilliant ideas! For those of you expecting a knitted sweater for Christmas- How about a felted-sweater project instead?!!? ; )
xxMelanie
Totally cool! I'm in awe of your new-found felting prowess! You did wonders with those flowers and the own is mucho funky. A+
ReplyDeleteLol, Thanks Nae! It's pretty versatile and creative- I like it! ; )
ReplyDeletedie Katze ist super geworden, ich liebe auch Katzen
ReplyDelete