She's Crafty | More Fun With Felt

This cute little guy is Fred.

Say, "Hello!" Fred...

Fred the Fox is a new furry friend I needle felted with the aid of a kit. You can read more about Fred's origin story in this post, Needle Felting.

It took me quite a few pokes of my felting needle to get a feel for this technique and I am grateful that we had the book, Kyuuto! Japanese Crafts: Fuzzy Felted Friends by Saori Yamazaki available for checkout. Without Fuzzy Felted Friends, I would have had a tough time troubleshooting a few issues I faced while making Fred.

I also checked YouTube for some tips and tricks and found some really amazing tutorials there. The one below is a favorite. The YouTube channel Gypsy Felting has many great needle felting videos along with other felting techniques as well.

Needle felting is a lot of fun and there are a LOT of things you can make with this technique. I've seen needle felted scarves, hats, purses, paintings--yes paintings--really, anything goes.

Continuing the felt theme, let me tell you about felties or felt plushies.

A few years back I got into making hand-embroidered felt dolls, which a lot of crafters refer to as felties or in a more general sense as being a soft doll, plushies. They are incredibly cute and incredibly easy, or potentially incredibly easy, and the patterns are fairly easy to find. Most of the patterns I look for myself are really simple. For me, the simplicity of the design is part of the charm.

Dinosaur felties of the internet!

The felties I go nuts for making are fairly flat, with just a hint of three-dimensional shaping, if any. The shape that you cut out of your flat piece of felt is usually the entire outline of your doll. Contrasting thread is often, but not always, used to highlight the stitching instead of trying to hide it. Before the last few stitches are made, a bit of stuffing is added.

Meet Foxy and Raccoon. Photo by katejf. Some rights reserved.

Felt is one of my favorite mediums to play with. It's fairly cheap to purchase, easy to work with, and can do so many very cool things! Give felt a try in your next project. 

Here's a short list of what we have at the library having to do with the wonderful world of felt:

• Hand Felted Jewelry and Beads by Carol Huber Cypher
• Sewing With Felt by Buff McAllister
• Really Cool Felt Crafts by Peg Blanchette
• Fabulous Felt Crafts by Katherine Duncan-Aimone
• The Art of Feltmaking by Anne Einset Vickrey

Looky here, I even found a few books about making felties through Link+:

• Zodiac Felties by Nicola Tedman
• Zombie Felties also by Nicola Tedman

And this one you can get from one of our branches:

• The Cute Book by Aranzi Aronzo Inc.

Well, I hope you are enjoying your summer and keeping cool! Don't forget to come on down to your local branch and pick up your Every Hero Has a Story Summer Reading Challenge log, catch a program, find out what your town is doing for the summer, and find your next fantastic summer story to read. We want to help you have an awesome summer!

You can find out more information about the Summer Reading Challenge by clicking here.

Malia

She's Crafty | Needle felting

The last few days I've been taking a sharp, barbed needle and poking it into fluffs of unspun wool. I'm trying my hardest not to poke myself more than once, since it has already happened, but not exactly confident that it won't since the tip of the needle I'm using is so dang sneaky.

I got a needle felting kit as a gift and it will be my first time felting anything with a needle. I've wet-felted knit projects before with soap, water, and my own two mitts, but this will be the first time I poke wool with a sharp instrument to attach wool blobs together. When I'm done I hope to have what resembles a fox and not a unidentifiable mound of tri-color wool. Crossing fingers!