Felting in Florida

Felting in Florida

My husband I recently went to Florida to visit our son and his family.  I usually try to bring some wool for my grandsons to play with.  We also babysat while our son and daughter-in-law took a weekend away for their anniversary.  It’s always good to keep the boys occupied indoors since it was unbearably hot and humid outside.

This time I thought it would be fun to do pictures.  So, I had them each draw a picture.

Here they are busy creating.  Luke, the six year old, drew dinosaurs.  Josh, the four year old, is into a game or video called Stickman, so Stickmen it was along with an emoji.

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I had brought some white prefelt for the background and colored prefelts for cutouts and a variety of colored roving for them to chose from.

Luke was able to cut most of the big shapes himself, but I helped on the smaller details.  As we worked, we discussed the best way to add each part of the picture. He had very definite ideas.  Since he had done felting before, he was able to do most of the rubbing and rolling himself.

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Josh also had very definite ideas on colors and shapes.  In his picture, we used mostly roving.  The eyes were too hard for him, so I did that.  He’s a very good supervisor giving detailed instructions on what colors and were to put everything.  He started the felting process, then lost interest. So, Grandma had to finish. By the way, those are bananas on the tree.  Evidently, Stickmen like bananas.

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Unfortunately, the vinyl tablecloth I used to protect the wood table began to leach color into the felt even though we used bubble wrap.  So, there are a few pink spots in the corners.  The boys didn’t seem to mind though.

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If they ever get a trampoline, I can see them using Zara’s method to felt a rug.  I know they’d enjoy that!

 

16 thoughts on “Felting in Florida

  1. What a wonderful way to felt – the boys will always remember the fun you had. They did well with designing their pictures!

    1. Thanks Lyn! Now they ask, “did you bring the wool?” :-). Next trip is making Josh a bedspread. We bought the material but didn’t have time. The green spread they are sitting on their Mom and I made a couple years ago for Luke. Now that Josh in a big bed it’s his turn for a new spread.

  2. Marilyn, these are wonderful! I live in Lakeland, Florida. What city did you visit in? I follow your blog and will try this with some children’s workshops at our local museum. Using pre felt scraps will make this fast and easy for them. Thanks for the inspiration!

    1. Thanks Vicky! It’s a lot of fun and kids are so creative. You’ll have just as much fun as they do. You can also bring yarn. Keeping up with them is the hard part. We were in Winter Garden about a half hour west of Orlando. We also went to the Crayola Experience which was a lot of fun even for the adults.

      If you do a workshop, let us know and we can blog about it here.

  3. This sounds like the perfect day! I’m so happy you can get your boys to do something that doesn’t involve a screen or a keyboard 🙂 Their drawings look great – you might end up having two artists in the family!
    And by the way, “Felting in Florida” should absolutely be the name of a book.

    1. It was a lot of fun. And part of the point of the project was just that to keep them off the electronics. That would be great to have two more artists in the family. Their Dad was a great cartoonist when he was young and their uncle is a trained artist who designs video games in virtual reality and does occasional book covers. So, I guess it may be in the genes.

      Felting in Florida….hmmmm. I’ll have to think on that. 🙂

  4. Really, really cute! When I was a child, I had a board covered in light blue felt. It came with felt cutouts, shaped in a variety of shapes and in a variety of colors. Does anyone remember those? Sort of a Colorforms in felt! I LOVED that board…creating all kinds of different pictures with the shapes. Your project reminds me of that board and the creative play it generated. I think children like the feel of felt too. When my six year old nephew visited me last year, we did something very similar, except I didn’t have prefelt–he laid out his background with my help, then made a picture with the roving. We felted it together. He was really proud, in his case, of learning a new form of art, and also for what he created. I bet your project will spark the idea for everyone on this forum who gets to spend time with children! 😀

    1. Thanks Terri! Children have no inhibitions about creating. I think it’s inspirational for the adults. It’s great you were able to share your felting passion with your nephew. I vaguely remember the felt board. My kids were always drawing and painting when they weren’t outside playing.

      It’s always fun to see how children react when you ask them if they want to paint with wool! I hope others will try it.

  5. Great post Marilyn! The kids look like they really enjoyed it and the pictures turned out wonderfully. You are going to have a couple of master felt makers by the time they are grown 🙂

    1. Thanks Ruth! I hope they continue to ask for wool projects and become masters. That would be great.

  6. Thanks Cathy! It was a creative week since we also visited the Crayola Experience which was a lot of fun. Their parents do like to limit the electronics. It’s getting harder to do though.

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