Felting and Fiber Studio

Part 2

(part 1 is here: https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2026/09/02/a-tail-tale-of-a-whale-part-1/ ‎)

Saturday Morning, we had the car packed and we were driving south to Kempville. Stash-it fiber festival was on and you can imagine how tiny my stash of fiber is! i might need more. Glenn and i were early, and were first in line. It was a fun morning of photography and shopping. i will only so you a tiny bit so we can get back to the tale of the whale.

4.1- 4.11 sign, hall, shopping, Glenn snoozing, my loot!

As i collected mostly blue fibre, locks, a bit more silk, and interesting shots, Glenn looked around, read a book, and snoozed as he often dose at fiber festivals. After successful acquisitions, of fibre and photos, we headed off cross country to the cottage. it was a nice drive and different views of rocks, trees, cows, sheep, but no bison farm this route. We did eventually get to the cottage.

As i told you last post, the lower skin i had started needed a bit more rolling, then i let it dry overnight on the screen porch.

Sunday: In the morning i pleated the throat. I used the small sewing clips i had ordered on line, they were easy to use, but if you don’t have them, then pins or a basting stitch would have worked. I started pleating from the centre of the chin working out to both sides.  once i had the wrinkles positioned, it was time to pulled out the new steam iron, to iron the skins.

5.1-5.2) Pleating top and bottom

5.3-5.4) ironing un-pleated sections of lower skin and folding top in half

Once the skins were prepped, it was time to return to getting the shape of the whale more, whale like. I started working on the mouth, adding colour and considering options for baleens (they look like a hairy moustache inside the top jaw of the whale. There used to strain out water and keep in Krill) i had 2 options i was considering, Icelandic tog (the outer guard hairs) or Mohair. The mohair was more lustrous and  i thought the whale would like lustrous shiny white Baleens.  I didn’t have any of the stiffness i wanted. (i had purchased soft mohair, not old course unsalable mohair! Drat.)

Monday: Luckily Judy, one of my guild-mates, had some that was courser but not at all as un-sellable as i had been considering. She brought a small bag with her to the guild social. Unfortunately i got distracted with a set of weaving notes that had been donated to the guild and had to put the whale project aside to get some work done. with both dyslexia and discalcula (letters and numbers) its still rather amazing that i have been guild librarian for so long.

Monday evening, luck forsakes me: i should have suspected things would not continue so well. On my way home the engine light came on for my poor rather old car. We made it to the drive way and I got her comfortable in her spot under the big red maple tree.  i went in to email her Doctor to discover what is upsetting her…… hummm the computer is black and i don’t here the fan going…… i guess i will call the mechanics in the morning and see how fast i can get her fixed so i can take the computer in to the computer doctor.  DRAT!!!! luckily i had taken most of the photos for the first part of the blog on my camera or cell phone. I wonder where the old lap top went. I found it, but it needs updating and dose not have word or publisher. Drat.

Tuesday: Car Doctors made a house call, my car has problems with her temperature sensors, so she has developed menopause and is having hot flashes! That’s fixable, they just have to find the parts…. Luck is back, parts were found localy and she is running by the end of the day!

Wednesday: Glenn loaded the ailing, possibly dead, very old, very large, very heavy, tower desktop computer into the car and i drove to Kanata.  Yes they could check her out in about 3 days time.  A quick stop at the dollar store and back home to get some felting done.

All this bad luck was making me feel a bit glum and wondering what the 3^rd thing would be. i called Glenn to give him an update and found he was on the way to see a doctor, not at work. (i suspected Glenn falling off some stairs while working, was likely bad thing #3 he heart his wrist and a few other spots but is recovering). Odd i just bot him an ice pack for his knee on the way home, but it will work for his wrist too.

Thursday: Ok, i am going to get some felting done before the weekend. Which is when i want to add the skins.  I collected the whale, my small bag of core wool, the laptop and my notes and climbed into bed to needle felt and work on the blog post (there are some advantages to a lap top and working in bed seems to be one of them). This is not the best place to needle felt but it was comfortable and i could watch midsummer murders and felt during commercials! Its is very important to keep track of your needle if you are felting in stupid locations like bed, so you don’t fall asleep and roll over onto the needle. Which i did not do, but i did drop it twice but found it both times in the sheets, it was even unbroken. After that i switched to a safer activity, I started to write the blog post. I was realizing not having word is a pain since i can’t save photos with the rite label from open office so its taking a lot longer. I kept working on the  blog post with the old laptop into Friday.

Saturday: We got up really early, Glenn loaded the car with whale parts, the lap top, and we headed for the cottage. The plan for today is to join the 2 wrapped armatures together and hopefully start to add the skins. Now that i have the courser mohair fiber i also need to add baleens.

6.1-6.3) adding fiber to position the upper and lower jaw so they work together (in case there is felted krill)

6.4-6.5) wrapping the whale to join the upper and lower armatures

I started by attaching fiber behind the eye bump to potion the jaw where i wanted it. Then wrapped the built up top and bottom armatures.  He or she seemed a bit thin in spots so a bit more fiber was added.

6.6) adding a bit more width to the whale body

They seemed more whale like, so i was distracted by there mouth and started adding the mohair as baleens.  This Mohair is quite course so even using a 36T needle they stuck better with a thin bit of carded core wool to help hold them into the jaw. It works like glue or a staple as you sometimes would when adding a top coat to a figure. I added a few folded layers of mohair then trimmed them to try to get the angle i could see in the picture. I probably should have worked with tinier sections as i worked toward the soft pallet.  But i was getting excited to start working on adding the skins. I left the rest of the baleens long, (un-trimmed), and will trim them when i have the skins on.

7.1- 7.3) adding the mohair baleens

I got to use my “eyebrow brush” on the baleens it worked wonderfully. I alternated between the tiny comb and the tiny brush sides. I don’t think the whale wants me to use the eye shadow applicator end. I may try a bit of hair spray if I cant get the curl turning the direction I want. I wonder if they make tiny curling irons…. No don’t get distracted, stay focused, no on line shopping until I get this post finished!

I am reasonably pleased with the effect of the moustache like baleens. I will see if I can improve the effect with the blue whale, who will have a longer mouth so more baleens.

Adding the Skins:

Sara started with the upper skin, and then wrapped the lower skin around to meet or overlap it. I wanted to get the throat positioned first, so worked backwards to her method.

8.1)  taking clips out of under skin

I used a few pins to position the nose and split for the tail. I had added extra width for the under side of the fins on both top and lower skin. so i put a pin in to position each side fin on the lower skin. Starting a the centre of the chin i worked felting down each side of the fist wrinkle.

8.2-8.3) chin placement and starting wrinkles

Sara’s whale has his mouth closed so Sara worked the skins between the upper and lower wires for the jaws. Since i wanted to show off his tung, i had the mouth open, so i needed to fit the wrinkles around the lip. A whales lip is smooth running along the mandible and the expansion wrinkles start just below that. Sort of like a set of pleated certens that can expand when needed. The expansion wrinkles can reach down to inferior to the lower fin on its back. I may go back and work on getting the lip correct but for the moment my whale is a mutant and has his wrinkles starting at the edge of the mouth.

I worked the wrinkles down the body alternating sides until i had pleated to the top of the “arms”, OK, fins. I had seen some of the wrinkle patterns had curved around the fin, so tried to make my wrinkles do that too. Then started to attach the fin cover skins, over the front bump tacking them down in between each bump.

8.4) fins and wrinkles and bumps

8.5) the wrinkles extend past where they should be. 

i had to trim off a bit of skin-felt towards the tail fins, around the side, and tail fins. The skin worked quite well, especially for the wrinkle making. It made a smooth surface and is not heavily felted, it could be stretched to the rite shape.

When i got to the tail i started to add the skin over the wrapped wire, as Sara had suggested. It was not sitting well, and i didn’t like the shape. So i checked the reference photos, reshaped the wire, then added a thin amount of core wool between the armature for the tail to give a bit better support .

9.1-9.5) photos of tail, tail fix and tail lower skin

I was quite please with the lower skin and other than the wrippily lips (8.5), it looks very whale like.

Adding the top skin:  The top skin was similar to the lower skin to work with.  It was a bit thinner and there was not as much extra felt to work with. Luckily I could ether stretch or patch the thin or short spots, to make the top fit the whale. Next time; make extra to allow for a bit more play. I used ether fiber cut from above the tail section or a bit of loose fiber under a thin edge to fill in the couple gaps along the side behind the arms.

10.1-10.5) adding pins for placement, needle fleting down the skin.

I found the pins again help to position the skin. I had been using a T-36 needle and I found that it was excellent with the lower skin especially attaching the wrinkles. I think I should have switched to a finer needle for the top skin which was applied in a flatter way.

10.6-10.7) cutting the skin to allow it to settle on top of the tale and lower body.

As with the upper skin, I trimmed the felt to allow the skin to fit over the body.  I extended the tail fin tips to give more feeling of the correct humpback whale tail shape.

11.1) tail fin extension at outer tips with one of the frogs at the cottage.

I may still add a bit of scaring which is common in Humpback whales and possibly a bit more barnacles, but basically I am very happy with the results. It was time to call Glenn over to inspect the whale.

11.2-11.5) whale inspection by Glenn 

I have to still add the eyes. i am not sure if i will felt them or use beads. in the mean time i have put a couple yellow sewing pins to position them.

from the size i think he or she will be a teen whale. i will add a few scars if he is older. i will know better when i have the Blue whale under-structure done.

I can already see a few changes i will be making in the next whale project in the armature. The most important will be moving the arm-fins to the top armature. I will also make the skins bigger to allow for more adjusting on the body and wait to make it after I have the armature fully fleshed out with wool. The density  and adjust-ability of felt-skin worked well, so I will try to make the same thin felt next time. I will need a bigger working table to do the layout and rolling. Maybe I will be social at a social and make whale skin, instead of focusing on the library?

i hope to have enough of the blue whale done to show you progress next post, if you are not worn out on whales? Have fun and keep felting.

Updated 08/31/26

I had such wonderful plans for the last two weeks of summer. 1; invite Ann to the cottage to relax and do some felting, 2; do some wet felting to add to some dry felting (while Ann was there, sort of like a life guard, to keep the water behaving), and 3; then finish up the first whale. So I suppose it’s not a surprise it is the tale of a whale, or a whale of a tale, I have for you today.

Like many of my plans, they often go astray. It started out fine, but my luck could not last.

3 weeks ago: I re-watched Sara’s humpback whale felt-along on YouTube, and had hours of fun researching both humpback and blue whales. I inadvertently found out a bit about a few other whales as I investigated. It is the way of research, so many rabbit holes to look into.

I followed Sara’s instructions for creating the armature… mostly, instead of a mix of 12 & 14g, I used 12g aluminum. She used coated floral wire to give extra strength and help the fibre hold to the armature. I had the unlabelled floral wire from Dollarama easily to hand, so I was liberal in its application. She had made the armature in 2 parts: the top of the head and body with tail, and the second armature had the lower jaw with side fins and body with 2 wires to add to the tail.

1.1) project box for whale project, 12g wire, un-gauged floral wire, tool kit, snacks

I wanted my whale to be able to open its mouth, so had research pictures of mouth interiors and how the expansion happens when it sifts water and krill through its mouth and out through the baleen (we will come back to those). Since Sara had an upper and lower jaw already with her armature, I went with what she had worked out for lengths and proportions.

Sara wrapped the upper and lower armatures separately with core wool, building the basic under structure. Then joined both half’s together and wrapped with more core wool.  she added the wet felted skin over the wrapped armature.  I had taken 2 days to make careful notes of what Sara had done, but as usual derailed and just used the photo-reference I had.  I spent most of a week puttering while adding the core wool and had much of the structure blocked in when, on Thursday, Ann arrived at the cottage.

Preamble: I really don’t like getting wet. It’s so, wet. If water were drier, I would be happier. I kept asking my Dad, a hydrogeologist, if he could invent dehydrated water. He seemed to think water was fine the way it was. (I asked him for a dinosaur when I was 3 or 4 and was told he was not that kind of geologist; at least asking him to fix water was on topic. Other than these minor failures, he was a fabulous dad.)

I had picked up a new 4′ long folding table with adjustable leg heights to work on. I had a new pool noodle and the wet felting kit I won from Marie at Living Felt (Texas).  Sara had done some per-blending for the upper layer of colours. I had an extensive selection of tones to work from, so I relied more on colour placement. The under layer for the darker top was a special blend from World of Wool, called “Indigo”; it is a fabulous blue-black, which I hoped would creep a bit into the upper layers.

1.2)first layer of the upper skin (W.O.W. Indigo coriedale)

Watching Sara lay out her top layer was interesting. She said the felt skin should be thin so it would be adjustable with a bit of tugging when done. I remember Moy McKay wanting thinness in her wet felted landscapes so they could be needle felted and fit in the sewing machine. Multiple times Sara said “that’s it”, then added a bit more fibre. I wound up doing the exact same thing, “ah I think that’s it,…… no a bit more just here”. Even with my enthusiasm, I was still able to keep the felt fairly thin.

1.31-1.32) Embellishments added to second layer of top skin, coriedale, silk, slubs, yarn and locks

Once the fibre for the skin was laid out, it was time to carefully add the soap and water, just enough to wet the wool but not the floor or me. I dampened the top layer of plastic and started to “gently caress the timid bunny”, or you can think of it as “lymphatic effleurage”, which is about the weight of a nickel in pressure.

1.41-checking felt integrity before switching to the wet felting tools;  1.42- photo of frog and rubbing tool, 1.43 -photo of tupper ware lid as rubbing tool)

Once the bunny is less timid and the fibre is starting to migrate, I switched to using the soft rubbing tool, then I used Ann’s Tupperware lid.

1.5) Starting to roll the felt, flipping and rotating the skin regularly

When the felt was firmer, I could start rolling with my new extra-large pool noodle. A regular pool noodle would have worked too; I just didn’t have one at the cottage.   When I had rolled from each end and side, on both sides, it was time to gently drop the skin on the table. This is a gentle way to shock the fibres into further shrinking.

1.61)dropping to continue shrinkage

1.62-1.63) top skin shrunk and checked with partly finished under structure.

I also did a bit of rolling and rubbing in specific directions to get the last bit of shrinkage I wanted. The skin is still quite thin but is also holding together nicely. It is time to set it aside and work on the lighter underbelly skin. Sara laid out and rolled both together, but I didn’t have a large enough table to do that, so it’s one side at a time.

Underside:

Sara’s lighter under layer was sort of the shape of a large mushroom. I started that way and add a bit more width at the top to allow more wrinkles. I had it layed out, had started to dampen the fiber when i changed my mind and added the “under arms”, OK, fins.

Ann had some grey and white fiber with little black flecks, i think it was from world of wool. i added a bit along the border where the two skins would join.

2.1-2.6) layout and wetting of the light lower skin

By the time i started rolling it was time for Ann to head home.  We cleaned up the porch a bit, closed up the cottage, and headed out. It had been great to have her company and i felt much braver with her keeping an eye on the sneaky water.

3) Ann had been Preparing dryer balls and had quite a few ready to go.

I still have more rolling to do on the under side skin but that will have to wait until i get back to the cottage.  i should let you have a brake and we can continue the whale saga next post.