Felting Friends Blog
Lucy Brooke of Winthrop, MA and Bluebird Grain Farms shared this wonderful picture of beautifully felted works of art
by 2nd Graders at Methow Valley Elementary!
A base was started with our Wet Felting Project Batt and dyed wool placed on top. Inspiring!!
Dalen (11yrs) poses with his needle and needle and nuno felted scarf
It is really so brilliant what children will create when you give them a little “how to”, some elements to create with and free room explore! These wonderful scarves by Dalen and Garret are perfect examples!
“…so my little people are busy creating beautiful things, as requested I am sending you pictures, these are of my older son, Dalen (top photos), working on his project today, he felted little bits to a scarf, then wet felted it, then sewed it to a piece of cozy fleece. Their scarves are fabulous and they had a great time 
thanks for all your help …”
Kali D. of Glens Falls, NY
Garrett (8yrs) poses with his needle and wet felted scarf
These cute critters are easy enough for preschoolers to make but fun for all ages! They make great ornaments for the tree, mobiles, and bath toys/sponges for kids. All of the photographs for the steps of this tutorial are of children from summer camp and school doing this project, ages 5-13.
Supplies:
- Cookie cutters (the kind that are just an outline without a top)
- Mild dish soap (I prefer Ivory)
- Hot water
- Fast Felting Colored Wool (I find the fastest to felt is the Merino Top or NZ Corriedale)
- A surface to work on like the lid of a storage bin
Choose a cookie cutter and colored wool to work with for the base. Lay a thin layer of the wool going horizontally inside the cookie cutter.
Put a second thin layer on, but this time lay out the fibers vertically.
Continue in this fashion of alternating the direction of the fibers in thin layers until you have at least 3 solid layers. Don’t worry if the wool seems really thick at this point, once you begin to felt it will thin out.
Begin wet felting by sprinkling a small amount of water as warm as you can handle onto the wool inside the cookie cutter. Put a dab of soap on one finger and gently poke the wool while holding the cookie cutter down with the other hand so the wool doesn’t slip under the bottom.
Once it seems that the wool is tacked together sufficiently (at least 5-10 minutes) flip the cookie cutter and wool over to do the other side. Don’t worry if the wool gets misshapen during the flip, just fit it back into the cookie cutter and it will reshape. If the water on the wool has cooled during the process gently squeeze out the cold water with the wool between flat hands before putting it back inside the cookie cutter and adding more hot water. Remember the warmer the wool, the faster it felts.
**Watch that you don’t use too much soap or water, both will impede the felting process.**
When it appears that the wool is sticking together on both sides squeeze out the water as best you can while leaving the wool in the cookie cutter. Leave to dry overnight.
Once dry you can poke with a 36 Gauge Needle to further felt it if it doesn’t feel secure.
At this point you can needle felt details onto the surface of the animal using different colored wool. I also sewed on seed beads to add some sparkle and make it a more festive ornament.
Here are some examples of pieces adults had fun making at a workshop I led sponsored by Living Felt at the New York State Art Teachers Association conference in November.
My 6th grade students finished felted their monsters just in time for Halloween! Their assignment was to create a monster that embodies either a fear that they have, or a pet peeve. We were also studying Tim Burton’s monsters so some part of their monster was supposed to be inspired by Tim Burton as well.
The felted monster with the orange dress with black stripes is the fear of heights. The student, Oudom W., wanted to illustrate gravity pulling at the character, illustrated by the blue hand grabbing at her head, as well as instability, which is why he has the person balanced on a round ball.
The green-eyed orange monster is to illustrate the fear of fire by Zina A. The fire monster has 4 legs and feet because Zina’s pet peeve is when people step on her feet.
The green monster with the red tongue hanging out is by Owen S. Owen is scared by the public service announcements warning people about the effects of smoking so his monster is green because he is sick from smoking. You can’t see it but this monster also has sick black lungs on the back.
The dark monster with the glowing yellow eye is by Day E. She hates being stared at, hence the giant eye. Her fear is of things that you know are there in the dark or lurking underwater, but you can’t see them so she made some tentacles and eyes coming out of a little cavern in the bottom of her monster.
The one with long striped legs is another fear of heights. This monster has spring legs and lures children to him with his bright colors and then bounces up high in the air. This monster was made by Evelyn O.
The black/dark purple monster with yellow eyes is fear of the dark by Ndali B.
The green guy in the white cup is illustrating Selorm B.’s pet peeve, which is when people accidentally use his cup at lunch and drink out of it making it dirty. His monster, therefore, makes cups dirty when people aren’t paying attention.
My students LOVED felting, especially the boys that I have had a hard time engaging in the past. At the end of class I would have to wrestle the felting needles out of their hands to get them to stop working and go to their next class!
Happy Halloween,
Laura and North Country School’s 6th grade class
Wet Felting Snakes – Felting for Kids
A fun and easy project to do with your young ones!
All you need is some fiber for felting, pipe cleaners, soap, warm water, and a bamboo mat.
When the robins return up north it is a sign that spring has finally arrived, even if there is still snow on the ground! When I was a kid one of my favorite books was called Round Robin by Jack Kent about a baby robin that ate and ate and ate…
Until he looked more like a ball than a bird. Everybody called him Round Robin.
Come fall, Round Robin is too fat to migrate with the other robins to the south, so he tries to hop along to get there. He is much slower than the other birds and it takes him all winter to catch up and join them down south. I still love the story and if you would like to read it to the children you will be doing this project with you can get it used, as it is unfortunately out of print,
through the following link: Round Robin
You can also read A Nest Full of Eggs, which follows a robin family through the spring activities
of nest building, hatching, and fledging.
For this project you will need Core Wool, Mc-1 Merino Cross Batts, I used a gray color from the Scenic Vista Studio Pack and 3 varieties of pink from the Berries Studio Pack, as well as black, white, and yellow for the head. You will also need a felting needle, an old knee-high stocking, soap and water. If you would like your Round Robin to make noise when you shake it you will also need a hollow ball that you can put in the center with bells or rice in the middle.
Projects with a wet felted ball as a base are great to do with children because there is less chance of them poking themselves or breaking felting needles when they have a large base to felt on.
If you would like to put a shaker in the middle start by wrapping the wool snugly around the form being careful to keep the fibers from twisting as you wrap it. Turn the ball slightly every time you make a rotation so the wool builds up evenly on the surface of the ball.
Continue to wrap the wool until you have reached a size a little bigger than you would like your finished product to be (keep in mind that the form will shrink in the felting process).
Once the desired size has been reached, the ends may be tacked down a little with a felting needle or just put it directly into the stocking by putting the stocking over your hand, grabbing hold of the ball and flipping it over the outside of the ball.
(Young children may need help with this step).
The seam of the stocking should be facing out once the ball is inside. For the next step you will need a bowl of hot water that is still cool enough to put your hands in. You can grate some bar soap into the water or you can use mild dish soap in a very small amount directly on your hands. Rub and roll the ball in different directions until felted. See the tutorial on Wet Felting Easter Eggs for more instructions on wet felting but ignore the part about fulling at this point, as you will be felting another color to the top of the white wool.
Once felted, carefully peel back the stocking from the wool ball. Squeeze out excess water and leave in the sun to dry for a few hours. The ball does not need to be completely dry to add the next color. Wrap the gray wool around the ball, tacking down the ends with a felting needle to ensure that the wool won’t shift when it is wet felted.
Repeat the wet felting process starting with putting the stocking back over the ball and follow the instructions all the way through fulling on the Wet Felting Easter Eggs page. Once finished with the felting process, leave the ball to dry overnight. Once dry, needle felt the pink or red patch where you would like the robin’s belly to be.
Needle felt black wool in a small circle at the top of the ball where you would like the head of the robin to be. If you would like the head to be more three dimensional, continue adding black wool to the top of the robin until it is the desired size.
Measure out two small tufts of white wool for the eyes. Roll one of the tufts of wool into a ball leaving one side a little fluffy so that you have some material to attach the eye with.
Poke the ball with a felting needle on a foam block, turning the ball constantly so it does not flatten on any side. Children will probably poke themselves in this step so an adult can make the base of the eyes for them, they can be wet felted, or the eyes can be two dimensional and children can needle felt them directly to the head. Black wool can then be needle felted to the white ball followed by a small white inner circle for the details of the eyes.
Round Robin’s beak is made by attaching a small amount of yellow wool to the middle of the head, pulling that tuft to a point and felting it directly to the ball. The beak can be made 3D by making a yellow cone-shape out of wool and then attaching it to the ball.
Take the eyeballs that were set aside earlier and attach them above the beak by fluffing some wool on the backside of the eye and needle felting the fibers into the head. If the eyes were wet felted there may not be enough loose fibers to needle felt the eyes to the head. In this case you can sew the eyes on.
Draw a tail shape on a piece of paper (it can even just be a triangle) and cut it out. Lay the paper tail pattern on top of a swatch of black wool on a foam block. Use a felting needle to make an indent around the outside of the tail shape.
Fold in the wool from outside the indented line of the tail to the inside and felt the tail leaving the end that will attach to the bird unfelted. Attach the fluffy, unfelted end of the tail to the backside of the bird with a felting needle.
Add wings or any other embellishment you would like. Your Round Robin is now ready to play! If you enjoyed making the robin you can make him some friends using the same technique but the markings of a different bird. Be sure to send us pictures of your children’s creations.
If you would like some more bird-themed activities to do with your children, there are some printable bird coloring pages that may help your child plan out the colors of wool they would like to use in the robin project or with another bird. Enjoy!
We are so happy to introduce you to Kira Weber and her Amazing Monster Hat! Kira is a talented young artist who inspires me greatly, and after seeing her and the wonderful hat she felted all by herself, we just had to share it with all of our felting friends.
We hope you will take a moment and enjoy the video giving grand tour of her hat and its making!
When I first saw Kira and her hat, I was so inspired that I asked her mom, Lori, if we could do an interview. She agreed and the whole family got on board to help bring Kira’s video interview to life. Lori and her family, like many of you, are both customers of Living Felt, and our cherished “felting friends”. They own Sirius Alpacas, a family farm in Charden, Ohio. They raise Alpacas for fun, therapy, and profit; and they also import high quality Andean items from places like Peru and Bolivia. You can visit their store or read their entertaining blog for more info on that!
Kira is 12, and if you watched the video, you know she has a twin sister, Maya, who is the fortunate recipient of the Monster Headdress (which I would personally proudly wear!).
After speaking with Lori about Kira’s wonderfully creative artistic expression, I learned she has some unique traits which cause her to view the world perhaps a bit differently than most. I was so moved by what Lori shared both about Kira and about their supportive family that I found myself blessed just to be introduced to them, and grateful that we would be sharing it with you also.
Below is a little more about that talented young, Kira, as shared by Lori:
“Kira’s the youngest of 4 kids – and the younger twin. She didn’t say a word till after she was three and was never all that interested in talking for years after that. Her sentences were always jumbled and she relied on Maya, her twin, to do all her talking. She’s not a verbal person and has her challenges with language. But, what she strains to communicate in words, she more than makes up for in art. Even at age two, she used to sit for hours with scissors and paper – and just cut super intricate patterns and then tape them into bizarre sculptures. Today, she will go outside and play with sidewalk chalk by herself for hours while everyone else plays baseball. She draws and paints all the time – and her stuff is cool, with detailed intricate patterns and colors.
When our alpaca fleeces were spun into batting and yarns, Maya took to knitting, and Kira to needle felting. Kira just goes to town because there is no “right” way. She and I dye alpaca fleece – and we also use Living Felt’s colors for the projects that have to look good – and she just sculpts away. She made a cute little bowl a few years ago, and then progressed to mermaids, snowmen and a few other neat projects. She never tells us what she’s up to. She just goes into her “art room” in the basement and creates stuff. Currently, she’s been painting a lot. But, she’s excited about her monster hat – and is going to enter it into the fiber arts competition at the county fair.”
We so look forward to future creations from Kira….be they fiber or not! We wish her great success in the county fair competition, but mostly we wish her great fun in expressing her artistic and very creative spirit!
Felted Quilt Square – 5th grader Alice Weil’s The Lion and the Mouse
Needle Felted Quilt Square – 4th grader Jetty Fincham’s needle felted illustration of The Country Mouse and The City Mouse
9th grader Sage Morgan’s wet and needle felted book with Japanese stab binding
Felted Quilt Square – 5th grader Grace Graham’s needle felted fable of The Frog and the Mouse
9th grader Ivy Lee’s wet felted backpack with needle felted details. The backpack was made as a variation
with the wet felting purse kit from Living Felt
These fabulous student projects were sent to us by Laura Bill, Studio Art Teacher at North Country School in Lake Placid, NY.
Laura’s email identified each of these gorgeous works and also shared that she learned felting through online tutorials and videos.
“Here are some photographs of felted projects my art students did this year using Living Felt supplies. …
I love the website and the newsletters, I use many of the photographs as class examples when I teach felting and I buy all my needle and wet felting supplies for class from Living Felt. Keep up the good work!” – Laura Bill
Felt Art by Pre-schoolers
We are so in awe of these lovely creations — that words hardly seem neccessary.
These lovely pictures were sent to us by Isabel Grunski who worked with
her daughters pre-school class to craft these works of art.
HOW THEY DID IT:
They used Merino Cross Batts in the following colors:
Chianti, Raspberry, Garnet and the Summer/Flowers Pack
The pieces were wet felted, cut into shapes and sewn on to the backing.
Needle Felting a Pumpkin
Laura Burke
Laura Burke shares this photo from her Beginning Needle Felting Class taught in Boxborough, MA
The class was 2 days, 1.5 hours each day, students aged 11-13.
“It was early Fall thus the pumpkin/halloween theme. I started the students needlefelting a ball with “generic” white wool, then hat them cover the ball with the orange merino fibers. Then I had them deep needle the creases of the pumpkins (let them choose the number of creases they wanted). put small bit of brown on the bottom then had them twist fibers on a skewer to create the stem.
Another class of 9-11 year olds was also fun in which I asked the students to bring in a picture of their favorite animal. One of the boys chose a platypus – (I’m searching for that photo and will send if I find it).
The classes were lots of fun -the most difficult part for both children and adults are to get them to focus their eyes on their needling, especially when chatting otherwise…. OUCH!!!”
Cheers! Laura
www.louiegirl.com
