First Felting Attempt

I bought a package of wool roving on ebay a few weeks ago and I finally got to it. I also bought a Japanese craft book on felting but decided I would start with something relatively easy and start with the soap.

The soap was actually very easy. I found these instructions online which were easy to follow. I didn’t have a felting board or wash board like they have so it did take quit a bit of time but was fun to do.

After I made the soap, I wanted to make something else. I wanted to try something from my new craft book but everything looked really difficult & since I couldn’t read it, it seemed even more difficult. I ended up just making a felt sheet to start with, just to see how it would turn out. This attempt was not so successful. I did this on kitchen floor and got soap everywhere. Also, I didn’t put enough layers of roving down so when I finished felting it, it wasn’t thick enough and was laden with holes. =( Also, it wasn’t a very nice shape, a very awkward attempt at a square/rhombus. I was thinking I could use it as a wash cloth and I needle felted a little leaf and embroidered the leaf spine with embroidery floss.

After staring at it for a while, I decided I would try needle felting the whole thing over a tennis ball. That allowed me to needle felt additional roving to barer parts of the ball. While it’s not as nice & round as the ball I bought, the end result was much better than had I left it as a weird-shaped bath rag.

 

My New Felt Ball

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with felting and felt balls. I bought a bunch of sweaters from Goodwill to felt. I went to etsy to look for inspiration and felting ideas and ended up finding this lovely thing. I was thinking of making one with a tennis ball with a bell inside. I went to joann’s and a specialty wool store but neither had a a good wool roving selection. After some research I realized it would be much cheaper to just buy the ball then to buy all the materials necessary to make the ball. After all, the ball up for sale was exactly what I want anyway.

I realize that it’s supposed to be for kids but it’s just so pretty, I had to have it. The polka dots in the various blue shades contrasts so beautifully on the purple. It’s such a nice color combination.

 

Mmmmm… donut – _ –

I saw a donut pincushion while I was in Toronto and was insistent that I had one. Mine is chocolate with purple frosting. I don’t know exactly what kind of frosting is purple… I would say grape but I’m not sure about a chocolate donut with grape frosting. My boyfriend said the donut was a little dinky and if he got that at a donut shop, he would have to complain about the size but I said it was a cake donut, which are usually smaller. =)

The chocolate part is made with brown felt while the frosting is made with a purple acrylic sweater that I bought from Goodwill. It’s the same sweater I used to make my mushrooms. There were beads and embroidered flowers on the sweater, which I kept on, hence the flowers. I cut the beads off and resewed them so they could be more randomly distributed to look like sprinkles.

I wanna make a whole bunch of them so I can have a whole plate of different donuts. mmmmm….. donuts… Speaking of donuts…. my absolute favorite place for donuts is donut man in glendora. Donut man has the most AMAZING donuts. He’s on Route 66 and in season he does Strawberry and Peach donuts (not together) but the Strawberry donuts are the BEST! He uses fresh strawberries, which he mixes with a strawberry glaze, then puts like two cups into a fresh donut. OMG…. gives me a joygasm just thinking of it… mmmmm….. DONUT!!!

 

Mushroom Collection

Look at all the mushrooms I’ve acquired. Quite a little stash. They’re taking a bit of time because I’m not mass-producing them. I’m making them individually so they all look different. The blue and brown ones are made from felted lambswool and cashmere sweaters that I got from Goodwill. So soft!

The blue one with the ruffles looks like a fancy hat.

 

My Mushrooms!

So I started working on my mushroom garden yesterday after being inspired by the mushroom and moss covered chair I saw. I went to Goodwill and bought a bunch of sweaters that I cut apart. They didn’t have any cashmere sweaters but I found some man-made materials that were quite soft. I think the green one is viscose and the white one is acrylic. I ended up stuffing them with poly fill because that’s all I had and I just stuffed it loosely so they still soft. I used embroidery floss to hand sew them together because of the loose weave of the material. I was going to machine sew them and flip them but the material didn’t pull very well through my machine and then my needle broke and hit me the face. So I figured it was easier just to hand sew them. Plus I could do it while I was watching TV.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do with them now but I want to make more. My boyfriend begged me not to sew them to the couch so I guess that’s not going to happen. =)

They’re all different sizes and shapes. The purple one has a really bulbous stem.

 

My New Bottle Cap Pin Cushion

So I finished it today. It was actually pretty easy to do. The felt was super easy to sew through, much easier than I had expected. For some reason, I thought it was going to be tough to sew through. So while not as fabulous as the one on the website, I’m still pretty happy with it.

Since it was round, it was hard to capture all the details in 1 picture.