Nov 21, 2010

needle felting madness

Here are a few pictures of my latest experiment - needle felting. I took a piece of old felt, not a very good one really, and began to play with whatever came into my mind. It's a little like using colored pencils and doodling. Just a random floral pattern. I love doing it, but I wish the piece of felt didn't look so much like a piece of ragged cowhide. I think I might make this piece into a wall hanging, since the fiber is really not evenly felted. It's really heavy in some places and has spots so thin that a hole could appear with the least bit of wear. The piece was felted by the residents here at the ranch, so I think it must be one of their first efforts.





7 comments:

marit said...

Oh, that's cute!

I have a question: You say the background felt was made on the ranch. How is it done? I've never done any felting- except for knitting and throwing it into a washingmachine-but this looks like "proper" felting. I have plenty of wool from my own sheep. Do you use prewashed and carded wool, or can you try with "raw" wool? After all, it's beeing treated with soap during the felting process? (I've read about it, but then it's used purchased wool that has been washed and carded and dyed)

Kathleen said...

Hi Marit!

This is a process that I have to learn, and apparently that will happen in the near future. when it does, I'll take photos and do a commentary on it. I think there are photos that illustrate some of the process on Woolyworks defunct blog. I'll go see and post a link, if it still exists.

Kathleen said...

Here's the link with some photos: http://odysseyrockranch.blogspot.com/2008/02/magical-felt-with-ranchers.html

It's not a complete how-to by any means and, from this blog entry, it seems like too big of a process for me to do alone, but I'll find out and let you know.

marit said...

Thanks! I really appreciate it:-) We have two different breeds of sheep- one called spæl,and the wool is "good enough" to be sold to a mill, but we also have uteganger, meaning they go out all year, and their wool are coarser,coloured in a lot of natural sheepcolours, and impossible to get rid of...so maybe felting might be a good choice for that. Looking forward to see how you do it:-)

Take care.

Pondside said...

I watced someone do this at a craft fair - some lovely stuff. I bet you will have fun with it!
Happy Thanksgiving to you - your first one back home!

knittingdragonflies said...

Wow! That looks very nice, "artsy"! I like the look of the rough background with the delicate needle felting!
Vicki

Kary said...

wonderful, Kathleen! How the HECK are you????