Ah, the outline embroidery around the felted shapes really completes the picture. I can't wait to get some wool roving and felting needles of my own to do another project. I'll take these over to Little Quilts tomorrow morning.
To those who asked about the technique, once your design is drawn on whatever fabric you're going to use (wool or cotton or whatever), you take a (very small) bit of wool roving, lay it on the fabric with a square of foam beneath, and poke at the roving with a felting needle, which is a long needle that they say has a little barb on the end, but I can't feel it when I run my finger along towards the end. You poke poke and add more or remove as you need to. I cut a long piece of foam and squished it into the blue jeans leg; it's fun to have a craft to use on blue jeans where you don't have to take the seams apart. I found myself shaping the wool with quick moves of the felting needle in between pokes. There are also multi-prong needles. You know a few companies have sewing machines that only do felting. Wouldn't that be a kick now. Although I wonder with those how you do the fine shaping that I'm doing now with the needle by hand. The designer of this Heart to Hand pattern says that the felting in the blue jeans sample held beautifully through several washings, and eventually she had a little "re-poking" session to reset the wool.
10 comments:
That looks lovely, & sounds very intriguing! I would love to get out & try something new.
Thanks for the explanation. I purchased a kit to make needle felted pumpkins but didn't quite manage to get to that little project before the fall season was already in full swing, so I'm figuring I'll try it sometime this summer, but of course, making large, round pumpkins seemed different from doing the same thing to fabric. Interesting. I'll have to check around for a supply of the wool roving.
It looks wonderful and great that you made the samples for little quilts :-)
Absolutely stunning. The outline embroidery really finishes it off well. Love it:)
The poking part looks so rhythmic and relaxing - maybe I need to decorate some jeans or something *s*
Karen, I've missed you blog on my list for a while and just spent the best half hour catching up on all your work! Excellent! I'll add you again to bloglines and make sure it comes up!
Karen how well does the wool do with machine washing? I'm curious to know about that.It looks stunning. Very hip.
Such a lovely effect - and what a nice way to add interest to a boring pair of jeans
This is just too beautiful! I have made the double felt needles by sticking the two needles into a mound of scluppy clay and baked. It worked great!
I am catching up on your blog--you have been busy! This wool project is wonderful! You do nice work!
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