Happy Earth Day

This week I finished a project that will be donated to the annual silent auction at my UU society. Just in time for Earth Day, I present Mother Earth:


This is the first figure I have designed completely on my own. I began with the basic proportions and techniques I used to make Father Christmas, but then went off on my own path. Since I am a newbie felter, the final product didn't turn out exactly as I envisioned, but it's close enough to please me. I wanted her to be reminiscent of a tree rising out of the ground, and my seven year old daughter described her that way without any prompts from me. (Okay, she didn't use the word "reminiscent", but she had the general idea.)


She stands about nine inches tall and is made entirely of wool except for one pipe cleaner (in her arms) and her bead necklace. Her hair is made of gorgeous Lincoln locks purchased from SplitRockRanch on Etsy. It took me about nine hours to make her. And oh, I still have so much to learn!

I will be sad to see her go. In fact, if she does not receive adequate bids, then I plan to buy her myself.

Busy Fingers

My fingers have been busy juggling many things of late; here is a sampling.

1. Darning socks is rather addictive, especially when listening to good audio books. Who knew?
2. Needle felted figures sometimes look like Bart Simpson before you add the hair.

3. Seeing this little test pop up on everyone's blogs gave me flashbacks to tenth grade typing class, where my cute-but-slacker boyfriend sat behind me. He could barely type 3o words per minute, so after he screwed up his time tests he liked to reach forward with his foot and unplug my typewriter while I was still madly typing away. (I'm clearly dating myself here, since current tenth graders--and many of my readers--probably would not recognize an IBM Selectric, but there you go.) Typing has been one of my most marketable skills over the past years, allowing me to land some decent temp jobs while getting myself through graduate school.

86 words

Speed test

First Finished Object Of 2008

And it's not knitted...although it is made of wool.

Meet Father Christmas:


You know how it feels when a project turns out just as good as--or even better than--you envisioned it? That feeling of joyful giddiness, when you keep going back to it so that you can pet it, and where you bring it into work to show everyone because you just have to, even though they are not going to "get it"?

Yeah, this one's like that for me.

The details: Needle felted Father Christmas, made from a kit from Black Sheep Designs. (You will have to look at the PDF catalog to see the actual kit.) I bought mine at Rhinebeck last year. I had previously enjoyed working on the snowmen kit from the same designer, Sharon Costello, and was looking for something that would bring my skills up a notch or two.




Father Christmas is 100% wool except for one pipe cleaner in his arms, and he stands about nine inches high. He took about six hours to make, plus or minus a bit. He's actually not quite finished, as I want to make him some sort of walking stick, but he's pretty darn close to done.

This is the first felted figure I have made that has articulated facial features, as I am generally not a fan of them. Although I greatly admire Sharon Costello's felting skill and would love to take some classes from her, I find some of her felted figures with detailed faces to be a little, well, creepy. Just a personal preference thing. But this one seemed less creepy to me, and I learned a lot by following her detailed directions on how to build and shape the face. Those techniques will be useful when I am creating my own style of figures down the road.






I find needle felting to be just an amazing form of artistic expression. It's more like sculpture than any other type of fiber art, and yet it's a flexible and forgiving type of sculpture. You start with this clump of carded wool and a needle, and just by poking the needle you can create shape, order, personality. There is a sense of immediate gratification that I have never gotten from knitting or even spinning; and a sense of creative possibility that is exhilarating.


Although it does feel a bit weird to stab Santa with sharp needles.

Woolly Bully

A while back I mentioned that my daughter's Religious Education (e.g. "Sunday School") program uses a curriculum called Spiritplay. It is Montessori inspired program where the kids listen to stories from various traditions, and then have a chance to respond to them verbally and artistically. I am one of the six teachers who rotates through the classroom, taking turns as the Storyteller; and an additional part of my commitment involves making some of the Storykits, which contain the props that the Storyteller uses when s/he sits with the children and tells the story.

So, last November, the team leader e-mailed me two stories for which I needed to create (or purchase) the props. The first story was a simple one involving birds and snowflakes, and I was able to get by with cutting some shapes out of acrylic felt and throwing them in a decorated box. The second story, however, involved an ox; and the ox needed to pull ten carts. And while I could have have just done the cheap felt thing again, I thought that three-dimensional props would be much better.

But. There aren't a lot of toy oxen around--have you noticed?


Enter this bizarre pipe cleaner armature: the beginning of a felted ox. Believe it or not, after you wrap lots of wool around it and poke it many times with a felting needle, it ends up looking like the brown animal in the next picture.





I think he came out pretty well, overall.

There is also an ox calf on the right hand side of this picture, although it is difficult to see. And I forgot to put a coin in for scale, but I would guess that the ox is about four inches tall.

The people are supposed to represent a merchant and the woman who takes care of the ox. They came out sort of Amish looking, don't you think?


Here is a close-up.

I ended up spending way more time on this project than was really called for, and I neglected to take a picture of the ox pulling the ten carts (which were not made of wool) before I delivered the storykit to church today. But the process was so enjoyable! And I was so happy with the results! I really did not want to give these little creatures away.

I continue to be amazed at the magic of needle felting. As someone who could never draw or paint well--and who always felt like a "non-artist" because of this--I find needle-felting to be a true joy. It is an incredibly forgiving and flexible medium. Yes, once something is truly felted you cannot un-felt it, but during the process there are so many ways that you can change the shape and direction of the work. Once I get into the "flow" of a felting project I could just continue working on it for hours.

VooDoo Santa

I'm still here, grooving along with Santa (and all his buddies in development). I will soon be sending them all off to live with various preschool teachers, coworkers, grandmothers and neighbors. I gave up on holiday knitting long ago, but holiday felting is a bit more manageable; each of these little guys takes less than an hour to make, and they are usually well-received.

Also, there's something rather, umm, satisfying about sticking a sharp needle into a squishy Santa.

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The holidays are not usually a difficult time for me; I love the lights, and the cheer, and I even like wrapping gifts. But I must admit that this year I have a touch of the blues. It may be the lack of sunlight; the stress at work; the unhealthy food that accosts me at every turn; and/or just the general feeling of being overwhelmed and scattered and tired. There has been some sad news in my local church community, and there is plenty of sad news in the global community. It is hard to take it all in, and to process it, and to not live in denial, while also keeping things in perspective and living in the moment. This weekend we will take our girls to get a tree, and we will all decorate it together, and I am hoping that this will bring me back to the spirit of the season.

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Edited on 12/8/05 to add: the felted Santa pattern came from a kit that I bought from Koenig Farm (at Rhinebeck) a couple of years ago. They have some nice beginner needle felting kits. I contacted the owner last year for "refill" supplies so that I could make more of the little guys. I made a few changes to the basic pattern, it's very easy to customize it.

Yet another needle felted bunny...

but this one is a little different. This one just appeared beneath my felting needle. Yes, I had planned to make a bunny, but--well. I had no choice. It must have been because I was reading the bookbookbook. So--without further ado, and with many apologies to Stephanie, I present:

Yarn Hare-lot

(Please note that she has her own Very Harlot poncho.
And a copy of the bookbookbook.
Click here for a bigger image.)

Meet Flora

You knew that I couldn't leave Fred all alone, didn't you?

Meet Flora. Like Fred, she is needlefelted (over an armature of pipe cleaners). She stands about five inches tall. And she has a lovely hand knit basket, that will soon sport some teeny tiny Easter eggs.

Given how rabbits are known to behave, I'm sure that you can guess what might be arriving soon after that.







Don't they make a cute couple?













God, I've got to get a life.

Meet Fred

Last night I had the urge to make a bunny.
I don't often have such urges, but when I do, it's a good idea to go with the flow.

This is Fred. (For a bigger pic, click here.)

I'm not sure why he's named Fred. In fact, I planned for him to be a girl. But it just didn't work out that way.

Fred is a needle felted bunny. The wool was wrapped around an armature made of pipe cleaners, so he is a bendy guy. He is about six inches tall. I think I'm going to leave the face without features, as I tend to dislike features made by needle felting, and I'm too lazy to sew or embroider. Although whiskers might be good. And I won't show you his bare backside, as he definitely needs a tail. After that? A basket. And possibly a companion.

The great thing about needle felting is the immediate gratification. Fred took all of a half hour to make, whereas a half-hour's work on Clapotis is barely noticeable.