Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A fistful of (felting) needles




Well, this is my first attempt at needle felting. And I only stabbed myself twice in making it!


I thought I'd start with something simple, a pattern perhaps, but I kept taking the thing apart and reshaping and reshaping and reshaping and this was what I ended up with. I've heard sculptors "see" the form in the blank of a block of stone. And I'd like to think this strange little fishy showed up in a similar fashion, but really, it just seemed like a cool idea at the time and it, quite literally, stuck.


Now that we are shepherds, I am attempting to teach myself how to work with wool. I've now tried a little spinning, wet felting, needlefelting, dying and even knitting. (My first knitting attempt was unraveled by my lovely children after many frustrating hours, so knitting may be on hold for a little while.)
I like them all. But wet felting is a particular blast! Perfect for hot summer days at home with the kids. We set out buckets of warm soapy water and cold clear water, and the kids ball up bits of felt in pantyhose toes and before long are climbing into the buckets to sit among the bubbles and scrunch them into shape. After we're done, we use the water to mop the floor!
Here're some things we worked on over the summer.












Fun, fun, fun!

2 comments:

Leigh said...

Good job for your first needle felting! I've only dabbled with it, so I can appreciate those efforts as well as poked fingers. There seems to be a lot of creative potential with needle felting. It's something I plan to get back to one of these days. (It's only about #199 on my list of top 500 things to do.)

Christy said...

I've been dying to try felting but can't find any wool to play with. I need to ask the woman I know who raises sheep. We are planning to raise sheep in the future so I should have lots of wool to play with someday.