polar bears, corn fiber and WIP dragons

Please click on the pictures for more detail because I spent a lot of time on detail for this mom and teen polar bear set . Most of last week was building the base of wool and needle felting the claws and paws .

The feeling I hoped to create was of the innocent bear cub getting ready to walk off to explore and mom's protective arm holding him back as well as the raised arm issuing a warning to anyone considering messing with her cub .


I'm not a natural sculptor so getting proportions and body positioning right is hard work for me but I really wanted to try a more cerebral challenge  . I'm hoping to get up the courage to enter this into our local state fair but deadline is approaching and I'm not sure if I will over come my trepidation in time....or that this will fit into one of their crafting categories .

Above are a few more detailed shots but even with the photo lights I used, it is hard to see the texture of these bears and I have a little secret to share about that........corn fiber .

Yep, unknown to me, the stuff not only felts well into the wool base but is softer, shinier and less "matting" then the traditional merino I have used in the past . I tried a blend of alpaca and mohair first and didn't like the end result which was to "hairy" , so I gave the Ingeo=corn fiber, a shot and it worked a "treat",( as the Brits say ) . I'm now so enamored that I ordered another 8 Ozs to play with and hope to get it this week . I loved how pure white this fiber was and was pleasantly surprised that it not only felted into the core fiber to make nice hair but you can also use it to felt alone, though it does take longer to felt then wool,  I think it worked great for nails, teeth and horns .

 Above is my only other finished felted friend from last week . I don't know "what" he is but I think he's cute and less scary then most of my animals .

Following are dragon "bits" from my current week long project ...hopefully I will have to time to finish and post more details about my process before Wednesday when I return to my paying job .

This begins with the dragon head using corn fiber for the teeth and horns . Then I decided I wanted to try and use some of my wet felted material for the body but made it to large for the head so these will be two different dragons .

side note...(One of the reasons that I began learning nuno and wet felting was to make my own "fabric" to sew animals , use for making their clothing and as mats for them to sit on . However, I found the whole wet felting so fun I got a little carried away and it became it's own obsession . Now, I am trying to get back to why I'm wet felting and the dragon was my first in that goal . )

I didn't take pictures of each step but will try and blog about the details of the dragons once they are finished .

In the mean time....happy felting to all .