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Category: Mixed Felting Techniques

Holiday Crafting?

Holiday Crafting?

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Are you making any fun holiday items for gifts or to sell? I usually end up making last minute gifts or ornaments but it appears that this year (knock on wood), I won’t be making any. I thought I’d show a few efforts from prior years and then give you a few links to some good ideas I found online.

finished ornaments

These are some ornaments that I made in 2011. They are made from felt scraps and then stitched together. You can get a little more information about how to make them in this post. If you have the scraps on hand, these are fairly quick except for sewing on the ornaments but you could always glue them on.

Christmas Tree Ornaments
Christmas Tree Ornaments

These are ornaments that I made in 2009. These are wet felted over a large whiffle ball (plastic ball with holes in it) and then the designs are needle felted. I can’t say that these are quick and easy as the needle felted designs take quite a while. You can see a few more photos of these here.

I made these poinsettias in 2010 and there is a tutorial here if you’d like to try some. They can be used as pins/brooches, ornaments or added to other ornaments.

Here’s a combination of the two types of ornaments. Instead of needle felting the white yarn down I couched it down with gold thread. This was an ornament I made for an exchange.

Now to a few gifts I have made in the past. One year I made ‘everyone’ coaster and trivet sets. This is the leaf set that I printed with thickened dye and then stitched.

 

 

These are stitched petroglyphs.

This is the floral set.

And finally the Montana Griz Fan set. I don’t seem to have a good photo but here they are drying.

And then there was the year of the fabric bowls.

I made a few as you can see. These actually take quite a bit of work as you have to fuse the fabric to interfacing on both sides and then zigzag it all together and around the edges.

This year has been a bust for making any gifts or ornaments. I did make one post card for the forum exchange and that has been it. But I would love to see anything that you have made as gifts or ornaments this year or in year’s past. Just join us on the forum and post about what you’ve made.

I have included a few links below for some fiber related ornaments and holiday gifts.

Knitted Christmas Trees (thanks to Leonor for pointing these out on Facebook)

Needle Felted Gnome Ornaments

Wool Ornaments That Could Be Used Year Round

Felted Acorn Garland

Wet Felted Snowmen

Wet Felted Lanterns

 

 

 

 

 

Same Picture, Different Techniques and Outcomes

Same Picture, Different Techniques and Outcomes

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A while back, I purchased Moy Mackay’s book Art in Felt and Stitch.  I like her use of bold colors and particularly like her flower and bird pieces.  While chatting with Cathy (Luvswool), I learned she also had Moy’s book and we both liked one particular vase of flowers in the book called Anemones.  We decided to do our own interpretation of that picture below.  (The quality is not great because I took a picture of the picture in the book.)

Moy anemonesCathy —

Moy lays out her fibers from start to finish, with “brushstrokes” of fiber, much as a painter applies paint to the canvas.  When she is finished laying out her merino roving, she then felts the entire picture as one piece.  Later, she needle felts details and then embroiders with machine stitching.

My approach was a bit different, in that I prefer to layout my base first then wet felt it so that I end up with a pre-felted white base on which to paint my picture.  I had previously used this technique in creating other felt painting and so was comfortable with the approach.  After my white domestic 56’s base (2 layers) was completed and dry, I began the process of laying on merino fibers in various colors, not exactly the same as Moy.  I added tussah silk highlights and then wet-felted the entire piece.

After drying, I began to needle-felt details, such as shadowing for the vase, some detailing for the flowers.  I chose not to machine stitch or hand embroider, rather I allowed the needle felting to be my finishing.

Cathys Moy

Newly armed with a stapler gun and some stretcher bars, I backed the 12″ x 12″ piece with blue commercial felt and framed it.

IMG_5752

Marilyn —

I chose to follow Moy’s method as mentioned above in Cathy’s description. For me there were a few firsts — I had never “cut” roving, had done free motion machine stitching or embroidered felt.

base

I made the base from batts I had made using dark colors, then added the lighter accents, the vase, then built the picture from the background forward laying out the background leaves then cut the flowers and laid them out.  I added some silk embellishments, angelina and nepps, then I wet felted the piece.

moy layout

After it was dry, I needle felted around the vase and added needle felted shadows on and around the vase and some details in the flowers.  My challenge came when I started the machine embroidery.  The felt around the flowers was thick because of the layering of the background leaves. My machine wasn’t happy about that.  After a couple of broken needles and a lot of frustration, I finally finished.  I added a couple of hand embroidered flower details to finish it.  I enjoyed trying a new technique, but will keep in mind the potential thickness issue when doing anything similar again.

Moy 2

After cleaning it up a bit, it is now sitting in the “to be framed pile.”