felting with kids – Felting and Fiber Studio

Pandagirl’s Year in Review 2016

December 29, 2016 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 17 comments

I hope everyone had a nice holiday and are ready for the New Year.

It’s almost the end of 2016 and looking back on the things I’ve done, there seems to be a few themes.

I did a lot of natural dyeing. Avocado skins, pits and the combo.

Cochineal

Alkanet/Logwood

Osage

Madder

Cutch, Rhubarb and Indigo

Eco printing

Resists

Under the sea theme

2nd Quarter challenge working with scraps – the former credit card case turned into an ear bud case.

Then the cityscape with scraps.

A scarflette with locks

Ginkgo stitching

Crochet piece felted and embellished with stitching

Felting wit my grandsons

Silk scraps into a free motion stitched vase

3rd Quarter challenge adding dimension from Kristy Kun’s class

Ruth’s Paper Lamination class

Teri’s hat class

Mini weaving wall hanging

More work with scraps for a sewing machine case

4th Quarter Challenge with embellishments for a coupon case.

And blue booties for a shower

Of course, there were also plenty of samples during the year including using the needle felting machine to felt some unfeltable fabrics.

A big thank you to Cathy Wycliff for her post on weaving and felting; my sister Carol Olson for sharing her new sheep with us; Nada for sharing her workshop experience in Slovenia; Zara for her posts on Felting on a Trampoline and her Yak, Mongolian, Churro and Zwartables samples; Leonor for her soap tutorial and Terri Simon on sharing her projects from Kristy Kun’s class.

It was a great year for me in terms of learning new things and doing some recycling. How was your 2016 year of fibers?

Happy New Year and Happy Felting in 2017!

Wooly Fun

June 18, 2015 Marilyn aka Pandagirl Comments 18 comments

Recently, my husband and I spent ten days in Florida with our youngest son and his family. When we first arrived, I told our five year old grandson that I brought some wool to play with. It was a busy ten days. On the last day he reminded me we were going to “make some wool stuff.” His three year old brother was taking a nap so this was a good time.

Knowing the kids love bright colors, I brought a variety of merino colors to play with. Luke chose orange, white, blue, teal and red to make a snake. He helped me lay out the colors on a piece of bubble wrap. He was fascinated when I mixed some soapy water — he didn’t want me to use dish soap, he was intrigued with the pieces of olive oil soap I brought.

When we finished laying out the two layers of wool, I covered it with a piece of netting and he proceeded to add soapy water with a sponge. I had him do some rubbing before he began rolling between two pieces of bubble wrap.

Sorry about the quality of the pics, this was a quick action packed process by an determined little boy.

We rolled it up at prefelt stage and rolled again in bubble wrap until it was hard enough.

I laid it out on the porch to dry (with 90 degree weather it didn’t take long.) Then I stitched on the eyes.

When Josh got up from his nap he went outside to play. Within minutes he walked in with the snake in hand asking “why isn’t the snake moving!” I’m glad it was a wooly snake and not a real one!