Needle felted American Badger and a few other tiny animals

 It's been a rough couple of weeks since I last posted . Although the therapy for the back and arm pain have not been a waste, I am still having arm weakness that makes felting difficult . I would say my productivity has dropped drastically (for me) .

 This past week off, I did manage to make 3 smaller critters, but I can generally knock off two mediums and a large in the same space of full time felting . It's very frustrating and having to continually stop to rest my arm ruins the wonderful rhythm of felting . 

 However, It has been good practice trying to work smaller and still retain the detail of my larger animals

 Above and below is another attempt to make a "real" animal . I spent some time googeling pictures of North American Badgers (there are several different types of badgers). I liked the idea of having black and white strips but it turned out harder to keep the strips from blending then I had realized .

 I ended up having to redo the face because my black and white ended up mixing to much, which may account for the project taking all last week . I still have to add claws and bought some FEMO but haven't gotten around to making them yet . Badgers have some really long , non-retractable claws for digging .

 I also did refurring of two of my older critters below . I added a layer of white Bamboo to the (lame) attempt at a polar bear cub and then reverse felted a nice long "fur" but it still doesn't look like a polar bear cub . Luckily, the other guy is just one of my imaginary animals so I don't have to be reminded of how much it doesn't look like whatever I wanted it to look like . I don't know why I keep attempting to make real animals when I end up just feeling disappointed .

One thing I am never disappointed in is how adorable my cat MAX is . It's so cool to know that I can make myself smile just by turning my head to look at him .

Hope everyone in Northern Hemisphere is enjoying the official beginning of spring . Happy felting .

April Fools Day car accident but still needle felting....slowly

 Firstly, I hope everyone had a lovely Holiday . I know that handmade and mass produced are considered incompatible but I think life is more complicated then that . Although I encourage everyone to support artist creating one of a kind items, I also believe that people in other countries deserve jobs as well . I bought 50 of these little lambs as an "accent" for some of my larger animals who need their own "comfort animal" to cuddle on their trip through the mail .

Below is my only new animal for the past 2 weeks .

 I am still spending most of my time re-vamping some of my older animals . I have replaced many of the eyes with bigger, better eyes and spent hours reverse felting them to give that fuzzy surface .The following are animals from the past few years of felting . It has helped me learn a lot more about how the different base fibers look when reverse felted .

 The alpaca and mohair give the best hairy look for the larger and medium animals . Merino is much shorter and softer and feels more like velvet .

Most of the above were done before my car accident....(I was rear-ended by a drunk driver on April Fools night) . Since the accident, I have had some trouble finding a position to sit in that doesn't hurt my back but I started chiro and will start physical therapy soon . I don't plan on giving up felting but it may take awhile before I get back up to full felting speed .In the mean time, I will just try and be patient and rest between felting...instead of my usual 5 hours without a break .

Happy felting .

How I spent my spring vacation........

 Above critter is my only new felt for my time off from work . Below are older critters that I spent 2-6 hours each doing reverse felting to make them fuzzy . A lot of work but I like the effect .

 Above are some of the new collars I am making for my animals . I actually found a bag of Tandy leather bracelet kits at the thrift store and put several together . I made the tags with my signature and Wool Alchemy logo using shrinky dinks plastic+permanent markers+ VISTA print self inking stamps<-------(this are worth the money) . It took me about 6 hours just to make 50 tags but since I can't get my printer to work, this was an "old school" solution for tagging my critters .

 I have my animals on about 8 different book shelves, so I packed up some of my least favorite felts  and reorganized my newer animals so they are ready for getting an inventory list made . I am not looking forward to that task .

 Most of my wet felting table runners and fabric to be sewn into bags and hats are in one closet but I still have to sort through several boxs of "almost done" projects and match them up with the right hardware to get them finished .This is mostly "to do" with some smaller finished bags and felt jewelry.

 I also cleaned out several cloths closets and 2 garages but below you can see the mountain of craft supplies I still have to organize . It's a bit of everything...leather, fabric and fur that I cut up from thrift-store coats, beading supplies, sewing and other things to finish up all those half done projects that may just need a button, zipper or accent beads . Wish me luck . 

It was difficult to limit my felting the past 3 weeks to do the tedious part of crafting but the up-side is my finger tips have fewer holes .

Happy felting and spring cleaning to all .

More Fuzzy make-overs and a few needle felt new animals

These are my only new animals this past week . That isn't to say that I have been totally lazy . I did spend a lot of time on-line looking for more wool sources and I designed new tags for my animals , both projects I hope to share in the next few days .To give a bit of size perspective, I measured the black box behind them and it is 12" long and 8" high .

 Before my new wool arrived, I also did several make-overs of some of my older needle felts . I think I feel much better about selling them now, as I fixed some very basic mistakes using some better quality materials then I started with and made them much furrier . I wanted to do a before and after make-over post but am not patient enough to look through all my pictures to find the originals . Some things are harder to fix then others but I think they are all improved in some ways .

I think there may have been a few others but these were the most noticeable make-overs . I still have about a  hundred old ones I want to make fuzzy, but for now, I can't wait to get my hands in my new fiber and create a few new friends .

A few of my needle felt animal supplies/ Etsy shops

Just a few of the places that I buy supplies . I plan on doing a more extensive list in the next week but wanted to give people a starting place . I have had some very bad experiences buying supplies on and off Etsy recently and hope this list of reliable suppliers might be helpful to others .

alpaca clean and raw


eyes


brown bamboo fiber


colonial saddle brown /Ashland Bay fiber


Alpaca and silk roving



fine fiber for needle and wet felting



reverse barb Inverted felting needle for furring

Bakasko wool artist.....(what I won)

I think sometime in September, one of my favorite felters was hosting a giveaway and I entered.....and won . I seldom bother to enter drawings but I did on an impulse and he contacted me (From Hungary) for my address . I then waited, and waited and waited and assumed that it had been lost in the mail until a few weeks ago when it finally arrived . It's a great example of his love of color and his attention to detail .

It was worth the wait . I think it is gorgeous and a mystery in how it is made because it has such detail but is hollow . I understand wet felting and needle felting but have never seen anything like this . You can see more of his beautiful work on his blog which has a new video of his work .

Balasko Wool Art

Go check him out...you will be inspired . 

Needle felt "furring" new and old critters

 These are my only new critters for the past week . They are both experiments in layering fibers and then using the reverse barb needles to pull the inner layers to the surface . The core sculpture is a medium wool then a thick layer of alpaca and a top layer of either alpaca and silk (larger critter) or brown bamboo fiber(smaller brown guy) .

I think there is a ton of potential in this technique allowing for even more diversity in color and texture combinations . I'm not bored yet : )  Some fibers matt up a bit and give a wooly feel to the animal and some look like more natural "hair" . After each section that I reverse needle, I stop and pull out any small loose hairs and then do another section . The more reverse felting. the denser the fur but you can give it the "worn mohair teddy bear" look by randomly pulling out small section . I like mine as fuzzy as possible .

 Of course, the longer hair sections are pure bamboo silk tacked into the wool . I also groom these areas by pulling out any loose fibers but don't advise combing or pulling to hard but it is a good way to find and reroot any loose area .

 Most of the past 5 days have been "furring" the animals that I made before I got the reverse barb needles . These 4 are a combination of wool base fiber and mohair,wool and alpaca blends on surface . It's hard to see much detail of the individual hairs in these dark pictures but you might get a better idea of the texture if you click on the pictures for close-up .

 The surface feels really soft now, even with those with mohair, it's very velvety .

 The two above are even softer with merino fiber on the surface of each .The only issue with merino is that it tends to eventually pill and is a much shorter fiber when pulled to the surface .

Above is the random gathering of old and new with different "furring techniques" I have been trying in the past year . I'm pretty happy with what I have learned so far and plan on spending some time refurring more of my older animals . I don't know how much it adds to the look of the critters but they feel wonderful .

Needle felt animals ....reversebarb fuzz

 Above are my two newest from largest to smallest (the little guy is sitting on the big guys paw) . I'm the first to admit that I'm not great with miniatures but this guy turned out kind of cute .

 My cat gives a bit of a size perspective and you can see last weeks critters in the background . The larger ones do take about 5 days of full time poking but part of that has been an extra day of using the reverse barb felting needles to give them that furry texture and the rooted in fur of bamboo fibers for longer hairs . I am in love with the reverse barb needles and having fun playing with different layers to see what makes the best fuzz .

 SO that is how I spent every hour not sleeping or working . pokepokepokepoke(ouch)pokepokepokepokepokepokepoke($%&^%)pokepokepoke

Happy felting !

Needle felting with Bamboo....(yes you can !)and other experiments

 Still having a blast playing with creating fuzzy textures on my needle felt animals . This guy is my favorite for this past 2 week . Over the base of wool I added a nice thick layer of alpaca then a layer of silk and alpaca blend so when I used the reverse barb needle I got a long haired halo of alpaca "fur" . He is super soft and petable .

 On his back, I used several alternating layers of bamboo roving . I love the shine and softness of this stuffand it felts very firmly into the wool/alpaca sculpture .

 ....and this time it was my cat Baloo who decided to get into the photo shoot .

 Here's the whole crew .....

 Probably my least favorite , still working on my tendency to make grumpy animals .

 But his back is a lovely bamboo luster....(the tail belongs to my cat)

 It's a bit hard to see from the picture but I did reverse felt his face and limbs so he has a halo of alpaca fluff and the rest is alpaca and silk rooted to his front and back .

 I tried a more subtle color merino on this guys "skin"....burnt almond . I do like it for a more realistic look but still prefer the cartoonish "pink" for over all contrast with the brown critters .

Well, that's it for awhile. I have spent the past few days hunting down some more base fiber that is brown and doesn't cost $4 an ounce . Harder then you would think but I do have 9 pounds of brown alpaca winging it's way here soon .

Happy felting .