13 April 2008

Woollie Creations

Last weekend the weather forecast was bad - really bad (the fact that it didn't turn out that bad is just typical of weather forecasting here in Scotland) so on Saturday I invited a couple of friends over for a crafting afternoon on Sunday (so we could stay out of the rain). The necessary materials were purchased at Twist Fibre Craft on Saturday morning - fibre in various colours, pre-felt, wire and beady little eyes and soup made on Sunday morning ready for a mid crafting lunch.



Andrea , Louise and I were working on creating a felt creature from the book "Felted Friends". I chose to make the punk porcupine, Louise a cat and Andrea a bird. In the book, the creatures all look perfect, making them look that way in real life was not so easy.

Each creature requires a skeleton made of pipe cleaners followed by a pre-felt wrap. Louise and Andrea's creatures were starting too look a lot like Egyptian mummies at this point whilst mine was looking more and more like a potato. After the pre-felt, comes the outer layer of fibre. We were using icelandic roving in a variety of colours. Mine continued to look like a potato on legs as I wrapped it in brown fibre......

 

After the fibre comes the felting, soaking the creature and gently rubbing, with or without bubble wrap to felt the fibre .... we also discovered that a great deal of needle felting was required to make the creatures look smooth. After the initial felting, it was time to dunk the creatures in boiling water followed by cold water a number of times to stiffen the felt. Mine continued to look like a potato.....

  

It wasn't until I added the spikes of roving that my creature started to look like a porcupine, but it's the big black, glass bead eyes that really make them..... Andrea's bird ended up making the perfect penguin and the little knitted hat and scarf are great!


16 comments:

Manoute said...

You did a really good job! I love them.

montague said...

wow, well done! i am very impressed! i have no clue about felting, but the results look very cute!

Jade said...

Too cute! I love both of them & what a great way to spend an afternoon.

Karen S, Lykkefanten said...

I just love the porcupine, and also the blue penguin. They are both absolutely adorable.

Anonymous said...

oh my! i love these!

Monkee Maker said...

Oh, these are fab! So cute! I love the colours on your porcupine.

:)

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful afternoon! LOVE THAT PORCUPINE!!!

Bethany said...

These are so cute!! It's amazing how rough they look until the end when they're all smooth and professional looking! LOVE them!

Leigh said...

Total cuteness!!!! Great work!

Anonymous said...

That punk porcupine is great--nice job!

Charlie P said...

I had NO idea that's what felting animals involved- they look great! How did the cat turn out?...or is there a reason there is no photo? For christmas you could take a step up form the mini felted gingerbread man and go for a MASSIVE solid one.

syko kajsa said...

I once took a (darn expensive) quilting class with the Swedish felt artist Gunilla Pateau-Sjöberg. She makes the most amazing things, I've borrowed her book from the library several times. At the course I learned that felting is not easy at all. They just make it sound and look so easy in the books. A bluff. I love the result of your felting day, especially the birduin!

Anonymous said...

Too cute!

dutchcomfort said...

It shows you had fun making the felting animals!
Wonderful!

Louise said...

Hi Charlie, the cat turned out ok too, but I'm just REALLY slow at anything crafty not involving knitting needles - the other two were much handier with their felting needles (be afraid!).
He needs to be dunked in hot water a coulpe of times, then I'll sew on his eyes and do a blog post one day soon...

Kate said...

These are fantastic!