With Easter around the corner, I decided to make Easter baskets for my grandsons this year.
Since I didn’t have a container the size or shape I wanted, I chose to make a resist using Rosiepink’s “How to Make Vessels with a Resist” ebook.
I wanted to put a different design on each side, but have both the same. A bunny on one side and a chick on the other. Then I made a resist design on paper and cut a template from plastic flooring material. After sketching out a design, I made some prefelts in colors I didn’t have because I decided it would be easier to control the small design pieces.
I cut out the designs from the prefelt and needle felted them together using yarn to decorate the eggs. I used an extra white layer underneath the bunnies because I didn’t want the background colors coming through after fulling. I also used another layer under the bottom of the eggs to level them out. Before laying out on the resist:
At the last minute I changed the position of the eggs making them vertical instead of horizontal. When I put the designs on the resist they were too tall! Back to the drawing board to make a bigger resist. I added another two inches in height to accommodate the height and shrinkage.
Since they are baskets, I wanted to make them look like it. So, I alternated background colors on the first layer. It got tricky on the second layer because the roving was laid out perpendicular and the colors didn’t match because of the staple length. I found the sparse spots and filled in those colors first then proceeded with the second layer design careful to alternate the side colors as well. I used four layers total one side at a time.
After I finished felting, fulling and shaping, I noticed my bunny and chick designs were too low. I’m sure the kids won’t care, but I’ll know better next time. I was very pleased with the final result. Although, the bunnies need some whiskers. Any suggestions?
To finish it off, I made basket handles by braiding roving, then felting and fulling them. I also used Zed’s “Polymer Clay Simply Made” ebook to make “egg” buttons. That was fun, too. I still have to put them together. The handles are soft which was intentional so that we could easily pack them and use the buttons to remove the handles.
What spring or Easter projects are you working on?
Thanks to Lyn and Zed for creating such easy to follow tutorials!