Gemini Loca

Kringles, 2007

I joined my good friend Barbara at her monthly Stitch and Bitch meeting this year and I taught them how to make needle felted Kringles. They were all a crafty bunch, but some really had a problem seeing where they were going with the whole thing until they added the hair. I think there was only one gal that had done needle felting prior to this project. After the hair went on, well, then all was clear. Only one chose to make a Mrs. Kringle. They all turned out so different, each with their creator's special touches making them part of their particular family.  A few people took more supplies to make another one. I'd love to see how they turned out. The very cool thing about needlefelting little characters like these is that you're not finished until you take the last poke. I still poke some of my work that has been "done" for months. So Cute!

Needle Felted Flower Girl Baskets

Well, the baskets aren't needle felted, but the posies on them are. My daughter is getting married on August 26th, this Sunday. She asked me to decorate the baskets the flower girls. My goal was to make baskets that would be fun and have a little zing, so  I decided to needle felt some flowers, add beads  and glue them to the baskets. I thought I would do roses at first, but the buds protruded from the basket too much. So, I came up with flatter flowers, the posie. What kind of flower is a posie anyway? I'm not quite sure, but my posies are just irregularly shaped red things. I started off by needle felting red disks that were about 1.5-2 inches in diameter. I'm not going to show them here in a photo because they were very straight forward to make. After I had a batch of the posies, I did the leaves.   I pulled a bit of three different colors of green. After felting a few leaves freehand, I decided to try needle felting them inside of a leave shaped cookie cutter. I stuffed the wool into the cutter and then needled it like crazy. I found that if you don't do this and really felt it down well before removing the cutter, you'll lose the good leave edge definition. I peeled it up off the foam where it was stuck really well. It was quite hairy on the side that had been inside the foam and  I felted the fibers back into the leave with my needle almost flat against the leave so the fibers wouldn't just come out on the other side. This wored really well. I ended up with leaves that were pretty and uniform. I laid three of them under the posie and poked 'em good with the needle until they were firmly adhered to the posie. I did a bunch of these so I could move onto the beading phase of the project.  I beaded the leaves with bugle beads in a veined pattern.  After the leaves were finished, I added centers to each of the posies. I thought at first I would do them all the same, but after I finished the first one, I went a little nuts and did each of the flower centers differently. It was fun to see what I was going to end up with each time. A few I really love, and a few are so-so, but once they made it to the baskets, they all looked good. I had three baskets to do so I ended up making thirty posies with ninety leaves, each leave and posie embellished with beads. I also made three posies into pins so the flower girls will match the baskets. I hope my daughter likes them.

Bald No More

I started this guy way back and left him bald. I was looking for just the right hair. I bought a nice Lincoln fleece at the Shepherd's Extravaganza this spring and found the hair this guy has been waiting for. I still have to make a perch for him to sit on and add a couple more things, but he looks much better with hair.

Needle Felted Roving Angels

I had an outing planned to go to the Seattle waterfront this past weekend with my daughter and grand daughter. I ended up a bit under the weather, so we needle felted some roving angels. They turned out really adorable and were pretty easy to do. My grand daughter is 8.5 years now and really stuck to it pretty well. She didn't poke herself once...she just let me show her how it's done! We used a pipe cleaner for some structure on the arms, but the rest of the angel is all wool.

Needle Felted Great Pyrenees

My co-worker lost her beloved dog a few weeks ago. I attempted to make a needle felted dog that would look like her baby. It's so sad to lose a pet. This was the first needle-felted dog I have attempted. I made it completly of wool, with no wire armature. I had this picture that I pulled off her Dogster site. It's kind of a "Myspace" for dogs. I think I captured her essence. What do you think?

Buttonhole Scarf

  My daughter wanted to felt a buttonhole scarf for her boyfriend's mom. She has done a couple of these before, but this time she thought she would do the initial felting with the needle and then do a light wet felting afterwards.

  She started by laying out a few layers of wool in opposite directions. This is a soft brown Cormo. I have never worked with this wool before, but it reminds me of Merino. It is fine and crimpy and soft. I ordered some from Apple Rose Farm. I think I will probably order more as it really made nice felt. She needled down the middle, and then all over with this year's Black Sheep Gathering luxury buy, the Forsythe Elegant Felter made from beautiful Cocobolo wood.  She carefully pulled it off the foam, flipped it over, then felted the other side. I think all together she flipped it about four times, until all the wool was nicely felted into itself.

We covered the table with saran wrap and wet the wool down with a sponge wet with Murphy's Oil Soap and water. She didn't want it wet felted too much, so she slipped some latex gloves on and very gently massaged the surface of the scarf until it formed a soft skin.

When when was done with that, she rinsed it a few times until the water ran clear. The last rinse, we put a glug of vinegar in the water and let it sit for a minute or two. She took it home, let it finish drying, and then cut a smallish hole at one end. She finished the hole by taking some home spun and sewing around the edges. She decorated it with some needle felted flowers an wha-laa. Project completed....unfortunately I don't have a photo of the finished piece, but she promised to take one for me the next time she sees her boyfriend's mother...I'll post it then.

Kringles

Ahhhh....to have a whole weekend just to play with wool.

Aren't they cute!!!

Wooly Snowmen

The other day, a few women from work and I got together and made snowmen. These were my results. They stand just over 6 inches tall. They're adorable! I was considering making a snowWOman, but their faces just looked too masculine after I was done with them. Perhaps next time....

A New Technique, Part III

The ears. Lay out some wool and needle  down the center. Roll a soft rope and lay it down the needled wool. Fold one half of the wool over the rope and needle to the rope, making a nice edge. The needled wool will be well stuck to the foam piece. Gently pull the wool up from the foam and flip it over.  The needled wool will be sticking up all over the place. Gently take the felting needle and press the wool down along the needled wool. Needle this wool in with the needle almost horizontal and even with the wool. Do this until everything is smooth and even.

Take the needled wool and fold it into an ear shape overlapping the edges. Once you place it on the head, you can shape the ear into whatever shape you want. Place the ear and smooth the un-needled edge onto the head. Needle this wool into the head piece. Make sure you don't place the ear too far to the back of the head.  In the example picture, it is too far to the back of the head by a smidge. I ended up needling it more towards the face. If you don't totally needle it when you're placing it, it will still be loose enough where you can pull it whatever way you need to and re-needle.

After placing both ears, I put teeth into the mouth. Hansen has three techniques for putting teeth into the mouth. The first one, which I used, is to simply roll a small ball of white merino and needle the tooth into place, The second way is to take a strip of wool and form little bumps, needling them into teeth. The third way involves wet felting a strip of wool, letting it dry and then using a scissors, nip the strip into little teeth. Finish by needling into the mouth.

I finished detailing the face by adding small pieces of brown wool  for eyebrows and little brown pieces of wool into the nostrils to give them depth. Hansen recommends shading other features with darker colored wool, but I think I'm going to leave it as it is for now. Another place she recommends shadowing is inside the ear. I don't have quite the right color wool, so I may play with carding the right color later this weekend.

To finish preparing the body, after needling the limbs into place, (needle so there is barely movement) I wrapped all the areas that were joined with thin layers of wool, and needled everything on very well. This really secured everything. I was a little concerned about a limb falling off, but after this step, everything was secure.

The last step was to put the head on. Play with the positioning you would like, and when satisfied, place the head on the torso and needle together, needling like crazy. As with the limbs, secure the join of the head to the body by adding some thin layers of wool and needling everything on well. You know you're done when you don't think anything will fall off!

Hansen puts the hair on before putting the head on the body, but I thought it might be easier doing it afterwards. I started doing the hair and just couldn't get it the way I wanted it. So, this is where I'm ending for tonight. My goal is to have this guy done, and named, by the end of the weekend.

13 Little Pumpkins

Here are the results of the felting class I did at work with a bunch of co-workers who where interested in learning. Two of them said it really wasn't their thing, but the rest of them really liked it and are looking forward to the next group project. Perhaps little angels for the holidays....