Local yarn shop, success!

Ooo, a friend told me about a local yarn shop and I had to make a quick stop in while I was in Chapel Hill today.  Its called Yarn Etc and its right next to Whole Foods and the PTA Thrift Shop.

Not only did they seem like a very nice group of ladies, but there was a nice little selection of roving and needle felting supplies.  I had to snatch up an ounce of black roving for some detailing work I'll need to do on some more animals from Laurie Sharp's Wool Pets.

The prices were competitive as well, which was a very pleasant surprise.  It makes me wish I'd looked around a bit more before ordering a needle felting kit from Yarn.com (although it did push me over the limit to get the 20% discount -- so I don't feel too badly!)  (by the way, just found the cutest blog post from Yarn.com blog).

Yay for finding a local store that caterers to my very specific crafting addiction!  (The employees both in Michaels and Jo Ann Fabrics were like "Needle felting?  What's that?  Is it like knitting?"  Booo!)

New kind of baby mobiles -- all needle felted!

So I was getting a bit bored with cutting out shapes, stitching, and stuffing.  To move on and create something new, I delved into needle felting baby mobiles.  The first one I'm creating is a re-creation of my original mobiles: Spring Showers.

Instead I'm needle felting everything.  Here are the pieces of the new one (yet to be assembled):

I really like the soft poofy-ness of the clouds and the raindrops.  Making the rainbow was TIME CONSUMING.  I made the base out of some less processed roving that I bought on ebay for a steal and then needled each color on in stripes around the base shape.  Its not quite as awesome as I'd like for it to be, but maybe I should think about combining the needle felted clouds with the more practical (and cuter, I think) recycled felt rainbow...

I also made another trip to the thrift store and returned with a pile of wool sweaters that I immediately felted down.  One of my next projects will be to make a felted sweater cappuccino a la betz white!  Ooo, I can replace my current pin cushion, which is a pumpkin I needle felted for a wedding decoration (still need to figure out what to do with all those pumpkins).

Next I'm working on a family of bats for Halloween.  To quote a stamp I recently found: "To be frank, I love Halloween."

The dawn of a new era

I finally received two things I've been waiting for FOREVER in the mail.

The first is Wool Pets by Laurie Sharp!  A friend requested a fish/sea themed baby mobile as a present for another friend and so I was excited to try out clownfish.  It took a while (2.5 episodes of Firefly, to be exact), but I think it came out pretty well.  Lots of detail (its only 2-2.5 inches tall)

I can't wait to try some of the other animals!  The giraffe is high on my list, and so is the bat (since Halloween is coming up!)

I also got my Trendsetter Cha Cha yarn and am about 1/4 done with the scarf -- will take document tomorrow with pictures!

Baby mobiles -- plastic discards turned floating wonder

I originally started using felt as a sturdy backing for my flower brooches/hair pieces.  It didn't take very long before the felt showed its own unique qualities and, as of a few months ago, I was hooked.  Soon I found some felt made from recycled plastic water bottles online and began fussing around with mobiles.  I can't even remember how mobiles came to mind, but I've created clouds, rainbows, moons, mountains, trees, and even fish out of different felting mediums.

My first mobiles were cut from recycled plastic felt and stuffed with clean, dry plastic bags.  I really liked that I could use recycled materials and make something imaginative and purposeful.  Plus because it came in so many colors, recycled plastic felt was really fun to work with.

I haven't sold any on Etsy yet, but its fun to see them floating around the house.

  

 

This chilly morning inspired autumn

I knew I was forecasting weather change to come last night when I was inspired by some oak leaves in my newest library book, Warm Fuzzies by Betz White.  However, since I'm still magically captured by the autumn from my November wedding last year, I went orange/red/rust route.  I think it came out pretty well.

I also plucked up the courage to take a photo of my felted bird fail :)  A little sad around the eyes, no?

I'll have to work on that before creating my newest bird mobile!

Felting is my new obsession

I discovered needle felting about a year ago when I was creating decorations for my wedding.  I purchased a pumpkin needle felting kit and proceeded, to my delight, to stab five or six pumpkins into shape (since the one has turned into my pin cushion).  What an utterly cool craft!  I could make anything out of wool roving and a felting needle.  Of course it took an hour for something that ended up being the size of a small tangerine.

My sister taught me to wet felt a few months later.  We made a set of river rocks for my dad for Christmas in about an hour.  This was felting at lightening speeds!  I got excited but put away my new tools as soon as I got home because Christmas and my honeymoon were around the corner.

But it was just recently that I pulled out the stash of roving ends that my sister gave to me after the wet felting and began to think about felting again.  I've been making baby mobile for my etsy store out of recycled plastic felt -- cutting the felt into shapes like clouds, mountains, and celestial bodies.  I decided to try my hand at needle felting a mobile for my first mobile request.  I have since run out of supplies (white roving and I lost a felting needle) so I'm waiting on that to come in before finishing off the pieces and putting my new mobile techniques to the test.

However, the lack of white roving has not stopped me from visiting the library and checking out a book on needle and wet felting called "Warm Fuzzies" by Betz White.  From my recycled plastic felt and a few strands of color, came this pear.

I also dug up an old felted sweater to use for stuffing and ended up making this bird nest.  

Lastly, I tried for a bird and it was a noble first effort but sad nonetheless.