Sheep Keychain

June 13, 2025 Shepherdessann Comments 11 comments

I started working on this a while ago and have managed to do one. I can hardly wait until school’s done at the end of the month. I don’t seem to have any time to do anything at the moment. Oh well, enough griping.

You may remember that for my Guild’s anniversary exhibition, I made a little flock of sheep. What to do with them now? I could just put them away or make a display, not that I have room for that.

In the past, I made key chains by threading a cord down and back up through the sheep and then adding a split ring. It worked, but the cords wear too quickly. Then I saw some cool headwear for keychains. They seem to just put beads on them, but what do they know? I bought a multi-coloured pack.

Of course, I also had to buy some new beads for this. Really, I did, I didn’t have any large hole beads that would fit on the pole. Sorry about the bad picture, way too much reflection on the left one, and I didn’t want to dump them out. The one on the left is mixed, so there are solids, stripes, crystals and some different textures.

I picked a green keychain to go with the green sheep.

The first thing to do is to make a hole in the sheep. For this, I used a leather awl. It worked quite well; I only had to fiddle a little to get the post through the sheep. You can see that the beads unscrew at both ends. This makes it easier to add the beads on the top and bottom after adding the sheep.

Then add some beads and and screw the ends back on.

I like the way it looks. I need to give him some eyes and probably a nose. None of the sheep or the shepherdess had facial features for the display.

The other thing I want to do is fix some of the ears. I was running out of time, and I knew they wouldn’t be handled, so I didn’t worry about some of the ears not being as sturdy as I would like. Some of them are too fluffy and underfelted, so they will not last as key chains.

The other thing I bought was a little stand and some cards to attach the keychains to. I hope that it makes them look a little more finished and worth what I want for them.

They are too big to fit in the little bags that came with the cards. I will have to look for some different ones.

P.S. I have not picked a name for the little ram lamb yet. Nothing has really jumped out at me as the right one, yet.

Needle Felted Sheep Workshop.

December 23, 2024 Shepherdessann Comments 11 comments

It’s the time of year when thoughts turn to warm woolly sweaters( jumpers). So, where do they get all that wonderful wool in amazing colours? Why for colourful sheep of course. Dyed in the wool as it were. And where do you get those? Well, you make them of course. They can really spruce up a manger scene for Christmas or you can add them to the scenery of your model railroad or add a pin and wear them.

I had 8 lovely ladies to make some cute little sheep. There should have been 9 but one couldn’t make it so her sister who was there paid her materials fee and took some supplies to her so she could make a sheep at home.

After this point, once the students arrive, I forget to take pictures. We start with the legs. I show them how to make them with needle felting. It is long and tedious to make them dense enough to hold the sheep up. Then I show them how to make wet felted snakes to cut up for legs. You can see a plastic bag on the table it has the sheep samples and all the snakes I made so they could have legs and move on the the rest of the sheep. they make bodies, heads, and ears and then they needle felt them all together. they usually look a little wonky at this point and everyone has a good laugh at them and worries there sheep will not look right.

Most of them look like they are on stilts at this point. It is better to start that way and then do some hoof trimming at the end, to get the length you want.

Next is the best part, giving them their colourful ( or natural) coats. we used Bluefaced Leicester curls. they are small nice curls.

As they have all their wool, their personalities emerge.

Everyone seems happy, I will need to find out if I had any comments on the evaluation forms. Fingers crossed there are no complaints. When you teach with our guild we have the student fill out an anonymous evaluation. It helps to head off problems before they really start and sometimes you get good ideas for your next class. Students pop them into an envelope and it’s sealed. Someone else opens it and has a look and you get the feedback later.

This is my last post for the year so I hope you all have a

Happy Holiday and a Fantastic New Year!

Shepherdess and Sheep

October 14, 2024 Shepherdessann Comments 11 comments

I spent some time working on the flock of sheep. Maybe not the most elegant sheep transport and sounds a bit like a horror show when you say a bag of sheep and sheep parts but it’s a bit of a production line when working on a flock of them.

As you can see I was being supervised in my Dr Franinstien endeavours. In this picture, she is wearing her first shirt and coat. You can see the sleeves are too big around and I didn’t like the way the hood worked on this one.

Last time I had finished the clothing, or so I thought. I ended up doing the shirt 4 times to get it the way I wanted it. The third one would have worked but I cut the neck hole too big.

I did get them finished and she had a dress fitting. I added a blanket stitch to the neckline and a blue star to her dress. I think this kind of dress is called a pinafore. You can see some of her flock in the background.

I took her to the Almont Fiberfest that Jan told you about and she supervised while I got her sheep some wool. This is the opposite of the way sheep, wool and shepherdesses usually work.

And another unshearing.

Next post there will be hair, a new coat and more colourful sheep. And a picture of them on display at the museum.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our Canadian followers. I hope you had a great Turkey Day!

Making sheep

December 3, 2023 Shepherdessann Comments 9 comments

Last time you saw all the lovely Bluefaced Leicester curls I dyed. It’s here if you missed it. https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2023/11/23/felted-sheep/ The next step was to take them to class for the students to use.

I had 6 lovely ladies. All but one ad not felted before. This is a short class 7:00-9:00 in the evening. so it moves quickly and I didn’t get a lot of pictures. I often forget to take pictures until someone else takes out their phone to snap a few. the first thing we talk about is the legs. I show them how to go about needle felting them. then I explain how to wet felt them. Then I showed them the snakes I made so they could all have legs without making them. everyone is thrilled. It is a boring and surprisingly time-consuming job even wet felting them.

sorry no pictures of any of that.

First, they have to make the bodies. We are using corriedale wool. It felts up quicker than merino.

and then onto the heads

And attaching them

They added the legs and the ears. Sorry, no pictures of that.

And then they start adding curls. s o this was the end of the class. some finished and some went home with a needle and a handful of curls so they could finish them up later.

and lastly this cute one with a heart on his hip.

Everyone seemed to have a good time and I may have a few new addicts.

Felted Sheep Class

December 1, 2016 Shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

This last weekend I was teaching a needle felted sheep class. I had 5 ladies in the class and as usual I forgot to take as many pictures as I should. I should hire a photographer I am always to busy.

I showed them how to make the legs by needle felting and then showed them how to make a wet felted snake you can make legs faster and easier if you want to make a small flock.

They did really well, with very little finger poking. After needling all the parts together in to naked sheep, they all picked their colours form the containers of Blue Faced Lester curls I brought so their sheep could get their wool.

Four were completely done at the end of class. I love theses little sheep they all have their own personalities.

One was not quite done and will be finished at home. For the moment we decided he was staggering home from a drunken bust up at the local pub.

This is probably the last time I will teach this class and the 5 ladies made it a fun class to finish with. I few other talented ladies are going to take over the needle felting classes at the guild. This suits me as I don’t needle felt much anymore and prefer wet felting.

Needle Felted Sheep Class

November 29, 2015 Shepherdessann Comments 10 comments

I hope all our American friends had a great Thanksgiving and have survived Black Friday. Up here in Canada it is a new idea that has really only caught on along the boarder, where they hope for cross boarder shopping. While some were out shopping I spent Saturday teaching a needle felted sheep class.

Here are a few of mine that created the demand for the class.

I had 3 student that had never needle felted before. We start by making all the parts. I forgot to take pictures early on but here are some legs being attached. I left the pen in to help you see the size.

I love the way people really get into the felting. Such concentration. You can see her right hand is blurry as she needles the head on.

After the parts of the sheep are all needle felted together and they have naked sheep, it’s time to start adding curls. We use Bluefaced Leicester curls. They are good for this application because they are small tight curls.

The last thing they add are the eyes. You don’t want to be stabbing something that is looking at you. LOL

Here they are posing on some weaving that was on one of the looms in the Guild studio. I brought lots of colours but 2 of the ladies decide to got with the natural curls.

They are always so cute.