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Needle felting


WyckedWood

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Around the holidays last year I started experimenting with needle felting. So fun but it's hard to find supplies around here for doing it. I didn't need one more hobby where everything had to be online ordered so I put it on the back burner. Actually I did find a little shop that sold roving, etc but then they went out of business a few months later...sound familiar?  These gnomes are %100 sheep wool, even their beards are locks, using different species of sheep wool. The two on the bottles are called bottle toppers, they have an empty core to fit over a bottle. I need to make some Christmasy ones for my tree this year. They live in my work room and watch the goings on :) 

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These are wonderful. You seem to light up whatever you lay your hands to. Thanks for sharing.

Can't wait to show them to Twinkle. She's taken it up as well. She won an award for a 3D kitten that she did.

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Thank you, I got a little creative with the noses but here's the secret...these are really easy! Warning : Rabbit Hole ahead!  The Safarina fiber art video tutorials are wonderful. This is the first of two basic gnome videos, then there is a separate one for the bottle toppers. It's worth watching just to see Sara's gnomes. I also made the sleeping mice and an owl and slipper for my tree last year. 

http://youtu.be/7VI3Slep1KU

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http://youtu.be/tkQSwUg5J5A

This is the sleeping mice video. I loved my little mouse, I put him in an abandoned birds nest in my Christmas tree with a little blanket over him. My sister came to visit and made off with him though. He was too big for 1:12 but I want to try again and see if I could scale down. They were really easy too. 

 

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 Well thank you for the kind words, I really love how you can just take a bunch of wool and like magic end up with a gnome or mouse. The basic supplies are just the needle, wool roving and then a pad to use as a base (so the needle has something to stick in to as it goes through your sculpture)  I made the pad myself, just a simple pillow shape with burlap stuffed with rice. I think she has a video for making those as well. 

Micheals has all the supplies needed for the basic items but when you want the locks for the beards you've got to go hunt those down. We have a needlecraft store that had the white locks (usually used for curly doll hair) but the more specialty locks I got from the sarafina website or "felting farmer lady" on etsy. I even bought some freshly sheared locks, unwashed or processed from a farmer on eBay, then I had to wash them of course. It's was kind of funny, I had all of these weird looking locks all over the kitchen counters drying on towels. Then my mother in law who is a Barber in Washington state had a client who was a farmer and she got some sheep and llama locks from him. So if you know a farmer it's easier to get your supplies :) I did learn a lot about the different sheep breeds. 

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3 hours ago, WyckedWood said:

http://youtu.be/tkQSwUg5J5A

This is the sleeping mice video. I loved my little mouse, I put him in an abandoned birds nest in my Christmas tree with a little blanket over him. My sister came to visit and made off with him though. He was too big for 1:12 but I want to try again and see if I could scale down. They were really easy too. 

 

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Oh your little mouse turned out perfect.  I ordered the other mouse from Sarafina, but plan to start with this little guy.  Love it.  You do great work 

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Your needle felting is lovely. I have felted a few items, including three little teddies for my dollhouse but it is really hard to get the sizes right for me, particularly when you need two or more pieces the same size. And the shaping...anyway, agree with two many hobbies!

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Thanks, I ordered the mouse pack from Sarafina last year, with the plan of trying to do 3.5 inch tall mice, but haven't tried it out yet.  The sleeping mice is a good starter project because there's no armature to deal with. One of her other videos goes into "fairy forest folk"..something like that, and they make these amazing figures with wet felted cloaks, santas and old crones, those would be fun to try in our scale. I've only stuck myself once but I imagine in 1:12 scale it might be more difficult, you'd have to be much more careful.

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Absolutely stunning work Karin, you really are an artist.

If you have a thrift shop near you look for Buffalo wool, it is for knitting  the Cowichan Indian sweaters , not spun  but combed . It is no longer made but does show up on e bay quite a lot. I have been collecting it for years as I do knit the sweaters for family sometimes. I can send you a couple of balls if you want to try it . PM your addy if you want some.

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If any one wants some wool, I have a pile of it unwashed yet, just for postage.  White alpaca, white-ivory wool and a few shades of grey.  When I go to the spinning guild big meeting in Feb there is a ton of roving, and bags of locks of angora, angora goat( they have the most beautiful shiny curly locks, plus mixes.  Some wools felt better then others, but all are good for hair and beards.  I have done a lot of flat felting, even made a pair of felted boots in a workshop, those were the most wonderful warm boots, I wore them for almost 20 years as barn boots before they fell apart!

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