Saturday 6 September 2008

Felting again!

Following on from yesterday, needle felting is easier than wet felting in that you've already got the felt base there. I have done wet felting when I took the first year of an Experimental Texiles course with Kim Thittichai (if you go to the shows you can often see her demo'ing for Fiskars). I learnt loads from her and we had a great laugh!!
Wet felting tends to be a lot messier (or I was, but then I always am!) However the felt you get at the end is streets ahead of the flat squares you buy in fabric shops. I only ever managed to make small pieces that were a bit lumpy!! In fact this is the only bit I've got left (it did have green in as well):
With the needle technique you can also add lumpy wool (can't think how else to describe it!) Just lay it on top and stab it through! You can get that lovely multicoloured wool which you can leave as is or tease apart a bit:
As I only tend to make small pieces it doesn't take very long and it's fun to work with something different. Here's a tag that I felted and added a picture to but haven't yet finished:
The picture is from Crafty Individuals and this is where I had to be careful with the stitching or the machine sort of cuts the picture out:
Then I just punched an eyelet through as usual and added fibres:

Now I've got to work out how to finish it off!
Helen

2 comments:

artyfartykat said...

I love the tag you've made Helen, especially the different materials you've incorporated.
I love wet felting, I'm just a messy pup I think, but I've never really had a go with dry felting, despite buying some felting needles a few years ago! I'm going to have to dig them out now!!

Hazel said...

This tag is amazing! The more I see of felting, the more I want to try it. I love the texture and dimension it adds, especially as you have done here, and contrasted it with an image. Thanks for inspiring me!