Over the last few years, I have been regularly following a couple of you tube channels on Felting. I occasionally trip over others too, but if Sara from Sarafina Fiber Art or Marie from Living Felt are doing a live chat or felting video I try very hard to toon in. Unfortunately the last couple months, I have been randomly surprised as to what day it is, which has made watching live chats much more challenging.

I defiantly have vague memories of Living Felt talking about having their 21^st anniversary party for the company, but could not remember the date, but I knew it would be on a Wednesday! I just had to figure out what day Wednesday was, and pick the right one. Thanks to my Computer, who kindly will tell me what the day is, if I hover over the date!,  I was able to attend the virtual party they were throwing.

1.1) Living Felt 21^st Online Birthday Party,  April 9^th 2025.

Marie Throws a fabulous on line party! Instead of the guests bringing Living felt presents, she was drawing names, from those who had commented on 2025 videos after they aired, and those in the live chat and giving them presents!  There were various fiber packs, wet or dry felting kits, I think there was a workshop and i defiantly saw felting tools.  There were many comments of Congratulations, Ooh-ing, and AHh-ing at the prizes! They were very generous too.

1.2) About a thousand names of people who had commented on 2025 videos in the you tube comments.

1.3) Names from the live commenters are being added to the drum. (My name is in there, somewhere).  More names being added to the drum!

Then the party began! With presents randomly dawn for the party gests. They started out pulling names from after video commenters, from the basket. As you can see above, the basket was huge and Marie had mentioned she thought there were about one thousand names in it.

1.4) various presents that valorous names received.

At about 20 minutes into the party, Marie turned to the mettle turning drum, to pull names of people watching live. One of the name papers from the drum tried to leap out as they opened the drum. She joked about it for a moment and then read “Jan Scott”. OH! That was a surprise! I wonder what is in the bag? It a big pink bag, maybe Maori or burckshaft fiber? Or a wool Wow mat, maybe with a topper?  Ok calm down, and wait for them to open the bag.

1.5) 20:05 name trying to escape the rolling drum as the door was opened, a large pink bag appeared from under the table.

From the pink bag a blue bag appeared, ooh I like blue! Marie explained it was the Wet Felting Tools Bundle. Well that is a surprise!

I suspect this is a sign I will be visiting Ann for some wet felting fun as soon as she is off work! We have a couple purses to make and maybe I can sneak in a pair of slippers? It will help me get out of my dry felting comfort zone again!

The presents continued but I was kind of in shock! I won? Really?  Well that cheered me up! I have been a bit glum, being stuck at home and looking forward to pain meds is a bit of a downer. (I am getting out a bit now but I take a few days to recover, but I think it’s worth it)

About 2 weeks pasted and anesthetic brain fog ate my memory of winning.  So when, on the evening of April 22^nd, Glenn walked in with a big box, I immediately thought, “ah he must have being doing another board game trade”. No, it was for me. Oh no, did I ordered something and not remembered? NO!! it’s from Living felt in Texas!!! Yah!!!! (now i remember)

Drat! It’s much too dark to take pictures tonight, I want you to see what’s in the box too. I must be patent and wait until tomorrow, when, hopefully, there will be light. (I’m optimistic the light will return tomorrow.)

2.1) A Mysterious Box, for me?

So now that its tomorrow (time is passing randomly quickly in this blog, just as it has been for me lately. Is this Tuesday? I will ask the computer, no it’s second Tuesday which means its Wednesday.) Lets open the box!! I Can’t wait any longer!!!!

2.2)  A large, slightly squished, Pink Paper bag!

2.3) there is a card and note! That was so kind!

OH the pink bag!! What’s in it? It got a little smushed in the box but I found it has a lovey note in it!

Let’s peek inside the pink, its Blue!! With another present beside it! the pins are quite cool and there is a small note book too!

2.4) the blue bag is actually a backpack! “Living Felt BFF Backpack, Quick Dry Nylon”. 2 cool pins and a small note book! with pretty cellophane ribbons!

Let’s investigate further, what’s in the blue bag?

2.5) first peek in the blue bag,

Wet felting supplies! Too many to see while there in the bag! Is that the nose of a ball braus? Also, what is that box shape I feel at the bottom? So many questions, I should unpack it and we can find out.

2.6) what’s inside the bag,

You still can’t see exactly what all this cool pack has. Let’s look at things in smaller groups.

2.7) the Ball Brause for wetting the fiber and “Nuno Felting resist small bubble 24″ x 36″”

2.8) this is the “Wet Felting Thin Resist”

2.91) more of the items in the blue bag displayed on white fabric

Inside the From Left to rite and back to front; “Bamboo Mat” (Fabulous my last one died ages ago!).  “Premium Mesh 54”x 1 yard” and “Thin plastic sheeting 9′ x 12’”.  Orange ties, (these are the same material I use to tie up the loom for warping, but the warping ones are mostly blue), and finally “Olive Oil Soap” we should probably take a peek inside the box and see what it looks like. I tried some very cheep olive oil soap the last wet felting project and liked it, so this much nicer one should be wonderful. its also Much bigger!

2.92) olive oil soap, I am looking forward to trying this!

It’s been a rough couple months here, and it will be a bit longer before I can get back to normal. So this was a wonderful boost to my spirits and gives a focus to look forward to later this summer.

Marie has been a great enjoyment through this, even if afterwards I am a bit unsure of what the chat had been about, and was a source of inspiration before surgery. She tends to have more introductory felting topics but many of them have inspired something different from what she had intended. If you have felted before or felted a lot, you can take the idea and run with it in a different direction or if you are new to felting you can follow along as suggested. You may remember my Bat on a stick (ok it’s a mettle chopstick) let me show you what I should have been making first, then show you what I did with the instructions. (I got distracted and added an armature for wings, with muscles.)

3.1) Needle Felt Simple Animals: Bat, Owl, and Red Panda Forest Friends! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vePY10Y72U&t=19s

What my bat looked like. I gave him arms and added biceps, triceps and deltoids.

This was a fabulous surprised and really cheered me up. Thank you to Marie who is inspiring so many people to try felting, wet or dry.

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Off topic, I was starting to suspect that we would never get spring. (Someone was hogging it!!!) Well I think it may be arriving, I saw scilla, crocus and lungwort in the front garden!  The weeping pussy willow even has kitten(?) on it! There is No sign of the tree migration yet, but any day now I’m sure! We even have a new side-door-rain-cover, which we found at Ikea. Here are a few shots to inspire you, in case you are still waiting for spring too. Soon we can all set up our outdoor studios, wash fleeces, and have fun!!! Happy felting!!

4.1-4.3)

4.1- The Scilla has escaped the flowerbed and attacked the Nabors grass! A single white crocus.

4.2-The purple Crocus are coming up. Part of the front bed and a close up. note the aggressive flower attacking that leaf!

4.3- the portable forest awaiting the beginning of the migration. The weeping pussy willow has had kittens!, the new sun shade by the side door(the garden bench will get moved back on the weekend).