Thursday, September 9, 2010

Needle Felting - It's Like Magic

Well, after many weeks of sunshine and warm weather in the Pacific Northwest, it's beginning to feel a little bit like fall - my favorite season!

I'd like to talk about one of my favorite crafts - needle felting.

Needle felting is the process of felting wool rovings with specialized barbed needles (shown below).  The needle is stabbed into the wool to bind the fibers together. The more you stab, the more dense your creation becomes. It is very exciting to see your desired shape start to take form. It's like magic!



Warning - You are more than likely going to stab yourself, so be careful! My little fingers start to resemble Swiss cheese when I needle felt. But no worries because it only hurts for a few seconds;)

My favorite things to make with needle felting are animals. Pictured below is a mobile my friend and business partner Carla and I made. She needed a mobile for her little girl's nursery so we thought we would add one of my felted creations into the mobile.


Jewelry can also be made with needle felting. I have incorporated felted beads into our Urban Creatures bracelets. The felted beads give the bracelet added texture and a very modern aesthetic.


This type of crafting is enjoyable because you can complete projects quickly and in a stylish fashion - and currently I'm making bracelets of this type (in different colors and styles) to put in our store, which can be found at www.urbancreatures.etsy.com.

Ciao for now,
Figgy

2 comments:

  1. thank you for teaching me this!!!! i love to felt:)

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  2. I'm glad you enjoy it as much as I. We will have to have a felting session in November!

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