Seven minutes of inspiring fiber art images. In this video TAFA shares members visions of red: of boldness, love, and passion…
some heat to get our fiber circulation pumping for Valentines Day crafts!

“TAFA: The Textile and Fiber Art List is a business community of entrepreneurs rooted in textile and fiber art products and traditions. A majority of our members have social and environmental agendas at the core of their business. TAFA unites old and new traditions, their historical and modern importance, giving a shared platform to both contemporary and traditional textile techniques from all cultures.”

TAFA presents an inspiring collection of all things Fiber Arts….Beautiful pictures and links to fiber artists and fiber suppliers around the world….a delightful place to spend a few Sunday hours with a cup of tea!

www.tafalist.com

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.

Felt flowers are fun, fresh, and best of all super simple to make. Even very young children can make the most delightful blossoms. These are an ideal craft for young children because they don’t have to be fully felted to be beautiful and wearable as pins, so when the child is finished felting the flower can be considered finished also!  Although generally children do love to play with the soapy bubbles and wool and this project can take as little as 15 minutes to felt! Every flower will be as unique as the child who makes them!



Materials:

Small amounts of wool roving or batting- ideally a quick to felt variety like merino

piece of bubble wrap and/or bamboo sushi roller

small amount of warm/hot water and a drop of dish soap



You can work on either a piece of bubble wrap, a bamboo sushi roller or a combination of the two, as we have. Any of these will work beautifully.
Lay out the wool fibres from the center, spreading out at the edges. There will be more wool at the center, and the outer “petals” will be more light and airy. Encourage children to work with thin wisps of wool, as though they are fairies painting the flowers.



Add some details to your petals by laying on wisps of wool in other colors. You can add a bright flower center too.



Make a felting solution of about half a cup of water with 2-3 drops of dish soap-not too much or this will slow down your felting!)
Wet out the felt flower by flicking water over the surface. It takes only a very small amount of water for such a small project. Use less at first, and then add more as necessary to wet out.



Cover with another square of bubble wrap, or fold over the piece you are using, and press down on the wool to wet out. Don’t rub, just compress with your whole hand. This flattens the wool and moves the felting solution evenly through the fibres. Check to see if you have any fluffy spots, add more water if necessary, then finish compressing.



Roll up the flower, and roll under your hands for 5-10 minutes, opening it up every now and then and changing the direction that you roll in. It is fine just to roll just with the bubble wrap if that is what you are using. It may be helpful to roll a pencil in the middle, to give the bubble wrap roll a little more structure.



Your flower should be quite felted at this point. Remove it from the roll, squish it up in a ball, dip into some fresh warm water and squeeze at and roll it in your hands for a few minutes to finish the felting. Rinse well and wring out any excess water.


To shape the flower as a pin, we need to create a flat backing. Place a coin in the flower center and gather the edges over the center and secure with an elastic band. Allow the felt to dry. The felt will hold the random ripples created by shaping this way.

Sew a pin onto the back and voila! A quick and totally individual gift every Mum and Grandmother will love to wear! You could also glue a magnet onto the back to brighten your fridge door!







You can also shape the flower to create a pendant, or to attach it to a felt stem. We used this method once to make a felt flower fairy garland for a forest tree house. Place the flower center over the eraser end of a pencil, or a piece of dowel. Gather and secure with an elastic band and leave to dry.

To make the Flower Stems:



To make the felt stem (or any felt cord), use a small amount of wool, roving laid out on your work surface. The wool should be about 1 inch in diameter for the stem, or the thickness of a carrot.

Wet out as above and then roll up in your bubble wrap. Try the keep the wool as round as possible as you gently roll.



Now place your wool right into the fold of the bubble wrap or sushi roller, place your hand on top of the fold and press down, pulling it towards you. The felt stem will roll along, under your hand, staying in the fold. This keeps the stem round, and will firmly felt it. Each time after pulling the roll towards you, you’ll need to open it up, reposition the stem at the top of the roll and then repeat.



Remove the felt stem from the roll and squish it up in your hand, dipping it in fresh warm water. This will finish the felting. Rinse well, and squeeze out any excess water.



Pull the stem straight and leave to dry, and create a curly stem by wrapping around the end of the pencil. The stem will hold it’s twists once dry. Sew stem to the flower back. These can be enjoyed as a table centerpiece, made into a pin or hat decoration. You could also use the directions above to make a long cord, working on one section at a time, then sewing on a group of flowers as a garland, or use each stem individually and join like a daisy chain.
A lovely May Craft for everyone!

GIVEAWAY

Leave a comment here by Sunday, May 6th midnight and enter in a drawing to win enough wool to make two of these beautiful flowers.

 

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.

One of the great advantages of using pencil roving is the ease with which we can draw out refined patterns, words or shapes. Pencil rovings speed up our layout time, allowing us to complete a complex looking project more quickly and easily.  Our Scribbles Nuno Felt Shawl plays with this quality, creating a beautiful, random pattern in a lightweight, lovely to wear felt shawl.

Materials:

36 x 30 inch silk gauze or chiffon

1.5 ounces Hampton Artistic Yarns pencil roving, shown in twilight colorway

dish soap

warm water

2  lengths of bubble wrap, each 36 inches by 80 inches

1 length of plastic sheeting, like a plastic drop cloth, 36 inches x 80 inches

pool noodle or pvc pipe 36 inches long

Method:

Lay out the plastic sheeting on your work surface. Lay out one piece of bubble wrap on top, bubble side up.

Cut the silk length in half, diagonally, into two triangles.

Place the short edge of each triangle together, overlapping slightly.



To help the fibers move more easily through the silk, we will draft the pencil rovings. This means gently pulling and opening up the wool fibers. We can do this ahead of time, drafting the entire length of pencil roving by holding the fibers with our thumbs, about 6-10 inches apart and gently pulling until we feel the fibers release, but not come apart. We can also draft the fibers as we work, stretching them out as we “draw” with the wool on the silk. Outline all the way around the edges with a single strip of pencil roving and connect along the middle where the two silk triangles join, with two strips. This will felt the two silk pieces together and create a nice finished edge to our shawl.



“Scribble” a random pattern of loops working over the entire surface of the shawl. The beautiful dyeing of the pencil rovings will create their own patterning.  Try to work fluidly, working from one side to the other and back. Have some of the scribbled loops touch or even overlap the outside edges of the shawl.





Mix about 1 teaspoon of dish soap with 1 quart of warm (not hot) water. Apply this mixture evenly over the surface of the entire shawl using a watering can, a plastic sports bottle or by pouring the water through a colander. We want to lightly water the surface, without moving our wool designs; just enough for the fibers to be wet, but not sitting in a pool of water.



Cover the shawl with the second piece of bubble wrap and press down with your hands. This flattens the wool fibers, bringing them into closer contact with the silk, and distributes the water and soap mixture. Press down on each section of the shawl 10-15 times to thoroughly wet out the fibers, before moving on to the next section. Work over the whole shawl in this way.



Lift the bubble wrap and check that all the fibers are flat and wet.



Replace the top layer of bubble wrap, and roll up all the layers, including the plastic sheet, around a pool noodle or length of pvc pipe. Roll applying steady gentle pressure for 3-5 minutes.  Open up felt and check surface for even wetness. Apply more soap/water solution as necessary. We all have different felting rhythms, so you may roll up tightly and roll vigorously for 10-15 minutes total, or roll more gently for 30-45 minutes. Periodically open the roll, check the felt surface and re-roll.  Check by rubbing your finger over the surface to see how much the fibres are moving, or by pinching to see how much the fibres lift. Once your fibers have started to move through the silk, and you can feel that they are attached well, you can roll without the pool noodle inside and alternate the rolling with tossing the balled up shawl down onto your open bubble wrap. This really helps to shrink the wool felt.  Continue until the wool is quite well fulled, and feels firm.





Remove from roll and rinse well under warm water, to finish the fulling and remove any soapy residue. Lay flat to dry, or run through the spin cycle on your washing machine and steam dry with your iron. This gives the wool felt a tight smooth finish.

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.

This is a super cute, super simple craft to make for or with children to welcome Spring!
Click here for the full pdf tutorial…Felted Wool Egg and Chick

These little chicks can be used as finger puppets, or maybe they will be found with a wee egg, hiding inside!

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.

Collecting pinecones is always fun. There are so many different types and shapes, that each gnome will have a unique character.

You will need:

Pliers, skin colored fiber, curly fiber for hair, fiber for eyes, felting needle

For this project choose a cone that stands up easily. Take a pair of pliers and remove four to five scales in the area that you want to put the face.

Take some skin colored fiber and ease it into the hole. Use your felting needle to move it deep into the nooks.

As you attach the fiber you will also shape the face.  Add a little more for the nose.

Around the face add some curly fibers with your felting needle. Make sure that everything is in the place you want it.

Add a small amount of fiber for the eyes.

Sometimes I like to embellish the top of the pinecone as well.

These gnomes look great on your Nature table, but can also be hung as Christmas ornaments; just add a little ribbon.

To make another one our cute pinecone gnome (desgined by Duo Fiberworks) please click here and scroll down on the Free Patterns page.

Enjoy other projects in the Tiny Treasures series:  Frost Gnome, Tiny Toadstools, and Rainbow Rocks.

Giveaway

For those of you who LOVE needlefelting, we’d love to giveaway a copy of Laurie Sharp’s beautiful book, Wool Toys & Friends.  Please leave a comment on this post by Sunday, December 11 for a chance to win this beautiful book.

Rainbow Rocks are the second project in a seasonal series of  little, quick-to-make gifts we so often need for the holidays. For planned or last minute occasions; for tooth fairies, pocket ladies, and winter fairs; for classmates, neighbour’s and host’s children; for advent calenders and stockings! Tiny treasures that can be made with a small amount of materials and a small amount of time- 20 minutes or less!

Children love to make these felt geodes, and are always amazed when they are cut open. We have been making these to be given out at our Winter Faire, along with a short story about The Rainbow Rock, and instructions on how to “break” them open.

Materials:

0.5 ounces/  13 grams assorted colors of wool roving

small piece of bubble wrap

dish soap, warm water, bowl

Use a small amount of wool roving and wrap the roving tightly into a ball about the size of a cherry or grape.

Wrap the ball with another color of wool roving. It can be helpful to divide the roving along the length into thin strips, to make it easier to wrap evenly. Continue adding layers of color, completely covering the ball with each new layer. To help keep the ball evenly shaped, roll it in your hands for a minute or so, after adding each new layer. This is a wonderful tactile experience for children.  Add about 5-6 layers of color, or until the ball is about the size of an orange. If you want your Rainbow Rock to look like a stone, finish with a layer of white wool roving and then grey or brown for the last layer.

 Holding the wool ball securely in both hands, dip it gently into a bowl of soapy water. A good felting mixture is 1Tablespoon of dish soap to 1 quart (1 litre) of water.

Hold the wool ball in both hands and  gently squeeze the wool while cupping it. This will help to keep the wool in place and after about 5 minutes of squeezing, a felt “skin”will develop. It is important not to roll or squeeze the delicate wool ball too much at the beginning.  Dip into the bowl as necessary to add a more water and soap. The wool ball should roll easily in your hands, with some lather on the surface, and be wet all the way through.

For about 15 minutes, alternate between rolling the wool ball in your hands, rolling it on your bubble wrap piece, and squeezing it. Apply more pressure as you work to increase the felting.

If you working on these as a group, especially with young children, pass the felt stones around in a circle, each taking a turn to work on each one. In this way stronger hands get to work on the wool stone and help with the felting.  This also adds a playful co-operative element to the craft, and keeps children engaged in the activity.  Just remember which one is yours, so everyone ends with their own one back!

Once the wool rock feels quite firm, rinse well, squeezing under running water to get out the soap.  Then finish the felting by rolling the wool rock under your hand on a towel, to get out any excess water.

Shape into your desired stone shape and leave to dry.

Use very sharp scissors or a kitchen knife to cut open the Rainbow Rock. Start with cutting into the rock , just under the surface, making tiny clips with the points of the scissors. Continue working around the rock in this way, cutting a little deeper with each round. Children love to see the layers opening as you go.

Once you’ve cut in through about three layers, you can probably cut the remaining layers all at once by cutting the Rainbow Rock in half.

Open up and take a moment to enjoy the array of colors and shapes formed through the felting.

We first made these when my oldest son was three years old. We passed a thread through the top of each half and used them as Christmas ornaments.

Watch for more in our Tiny Treasures series- we’ll be featuring at least one new tutorial each week until Christmas,  including wooden castle blocks, tiny frost gnomes, and poppy pod people, plus other small and simple natural gift making inspirations.

If you’d like to accompany this craft with a story, you could read  The Rainbow Rock . This story would also be nice to go along with a real crystal geode as a special Tiny Treasure!

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.

This is the first in a seasonal series of projects and ideas for those little, quick-to-make gifts we so often need for the holidays. For planned or last minute occasions; for tooth fairies, pocket ladies, and winter fairs; for classmates, neighbour’s and host’s children; for advent calenders and stockings! Tiny treasures that can be made with a small amount of materials and a small amount of time- 20 minutes or less!

Our first tiny treasure are these magical needle felted toadstools, lovely for many occasions as gifts and as seasonal home decorations or a nature table.

Materials:

small amount (0.1 ounce- 3-4 grams) white wool roving and red wool roving -or color of your choice. A fairy dyed wool gives a lovely woodland effect.

felting needle

sponge

Use a piece of wool roving that is about the size of your hand. Roll it up so that it is about the thickness of your thumb, and about 4 inches (10 cm) long.

Needle felt all over one half of the length of the toadstool stem, turning it regularly to keep it round. Leave the wool at the other end of the stem unfelted.

Using a sponge as work surface is really helpful with these small crafts. Try to always be felting  with the sponge under where you are working- it can be tempting to pick up the toadstool and work with it in your hands, but this often results in more needle pricks- and they hurt!

Needlefelt the bottom of the toadstool stem by felting well into the end. Alternate working around the the stem, and flattening the bottom of the stem, until it is very firmly felted.

Wrap the red or colored wool around the unfelted part of the white stem. Be sure and cover all the white at the top of the toadstool. Add more wool at the bottom of the toadstool cap to create a conical shape.

Needlefelt all over the toadstool cap, turning regularly to maintain the shape. Work the needle well into the wool, to create a solid felted top.

Try working with the needle at diffrent angles to help shape the toadstool top-just always be sure to bring the needle out at the same angle as it went in. Felting needles are brittle and can break if angle is changed or used to pry the fibers.

Felt into the underside of the toadstool cap. Keep felting wherever more is needed to make a firm felt, making sure the needle is going right into the wool.

Add some dots to the toadstool cap by using the tiniest anount of wool, and just needling it right in the middle of the fibers- in the same spot. Most the wool will be drawn into the toadstool. Then you can felt in any stray fibers around that central spot. This creates a nice dot, without making an indent or crater in the surface.

Run over the surface of the toadstool with your thumbnail to remove any needle felting marks.  A tiny treasure, ready to be given and enjoyed!

Watch for more of our Tiny Treasures series- we’ll be featuring at least one new tutorial each week until Christmas,  plus other small and simple natural gift making inspirations.

GIVEAWAY

Please leave a comment on this post by Tuesday, November 22nd, and receive 4 years of Living Crafts! Your package will include all of our 16 quarterly issues starting witht he Premier Issue, Winter 2008 and ending with Fall 2011.  The lucky winner will be chosen through a randomizer, and announced following day.

We have a winner!

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.

The pomegranate symbolizes fruitfulness, learning, knowledge and wisdom. Inside the pomegranate are many, many crunchy, tart but sweet tasting red seeds and this is the part that you eat. The seeds are eaten by themselves (snack), put into salads or squeezed for their juice.

Needle felted vessels are easy to make, they’re useful and they make great gifts! It helps to look at a photo as you make your piece or better yet, if they’re in season, have a real pomegranate in front of you while you create.

Pomegranate Vessel 15″ diameter x 7.5″ tall

Materials:

Red wool (approximately 30g)

White wool (approximately 20g)

Poly fiber-fill or core wool  (approximately 50g)

Sponge felting surface

Felting needles-medium gauge

Felting needle handles (for 4 to 10 needles is preferable)

Sewing thread to wrap shapes

scissors

1. With sewing thread, wrap poly fiber-fill or core wool into a firm ball (15″ diameter). Felt red wool over the entire ball.

2. Cut the ball in half with scissors. To hollow out the ball, pull out the core of poly fiber- fill or core wool from both halves of the ball. It’s very important not to pull too much of the poly fiber-fill out or the sides with be weak and floppy.

3. With white wool, needle felt the inside halves of the ball, felt till firm and smooth. Sculpt the insides of the ball into bowl shapes, emphasize felting in the curved areas of the interiors of the ball. Hold the two halves next to each other while felting to help make both sides the same. Felt red wool along the edges.

4. With sewing thread, wrap a handful of poly fiber fill or core wool for the knob at the top of the pomegranate. Cover the knob with red wool, needle felt till firm and smooth, leave the bottom of the shape unfelted so it can be felted/attached to the top of the pomegranate easier.

5. Place the red knob on the top half of the pomegranate, needle felt into place. Cover the area where the two shapes meet with  red wool, needle felt around the connecting area to make the connection seamless.

6. To make the flaps on top of the pomegranate, take 5 tufts of wool. Find the center of each tuft and fold both sides down to make a triangular shape. Needle felt the triangles till firm and smooth.

7. With scissors, cut out the center of the pomegranate knob. Needle felt the flaps around the top of the knob. Fill in the hollowed out area with red wool and needle felt till firm and smooth.

Laura Lee Burch, originally from Greenfield, Indiana, lives with her husband and three daughters in Tel Aviv, Israel.  A graphic designer and illustrator by training, she is an avid crafter and sewing designer, and the author of two sewing books on children’s clothing and accessories.  You can contact her by visiting her website LauraLeeBurch.com.

Marie Spaulding's Peace Dove 2011

The International Day of Peace, September 21st, was first celebrated in 1981. It is a day to celebrate and foster peace, and to observe an absence of war, with an international call for a 24 hour cessation of hostilities, issued by the UN.

Marie Spaulding of Living Felt, was inspired by this day to create Peace Felt, a global feltmaking collaboration-  “To connect every country in an energetic circle of peace, unconditional love, and gratitude. For Peace to be Felt in hearts across the world.”

Marie creating her Peacefelt for her receiving partner in Belgium

On this, the International Day of Peace, Marie shares with us her vision, inspiration, and information on Peace Felt.

“At the time I received the inspiration for Peace Felt, I was asking for guidance in how I could be of greater service to Good, to Love, to God. In the vision I received, a number of desires came together…I had specifically wanted to create a celebration around the International Day of Peace, and I have wanted to connect fiber artists in a meaningful way. Peace Felt answered all in one project. The power of all of us together is immense and this project connects our hearts and our intentions in harmony, while also celebrating the craft of felting.”

Lynette Spaulding working on her feltwork: Peace Grows Out of Self Love.

“Projects made for the exchange have included wall hangings, sculptures, flags, scarves – just a wonderful variety of
heart-felt expressions. If you are a weaver, quilt maker, basket weaver, fiber artist, sculptor, mixed media artist, etc. you may wish to participate by incorporating handmade felt into your preferred medium.  The projects must include at least 25% hand-made felt (either wet felting or needle felting). Most are 100% felt.”

Peacefelting in Belgium

“This year 15 countries are participating, with 300 individual and group members matched. Each participant or group is connected with a Receiving Partner and a Giving Partner.  The participant will send their PEACE FELT to their Receiving Partner, giving it in the spirit of unconditional love, free from the expectation of a return gift in “exchange”. Instead, that same participant will receive a PEACE FELT from their own Giving Partner allowing them to be the recipient of unconditional love without anything expected of them in return.”

Peace Felt participants often build up lasting friendships, in online conversations as each person’s or group’s felt project develops. Dita, in the Netherlands, shared this letter from her group to their receiving partners, which reflects so well the motivations surrounding Peace Felt:

“Dear Jan and Group,

On 9/11 (this very special day), my friend Jitske and I organised a day for Peace, a day of commitment and creativity. The first part of the day took place in a Mongolian yurt, which gives a special feeling because of its round form.

By singing and dancing we formed a circle inside the yurt and opened our hearts, and in this way we made contact with our deepest wishes. These wishes were later translated in a personal ‘peace of felt’.

We danced and sang for peace, outside in the whole world, but also within ourselves.

We have put our footprints for peace on the “earth”, represented by silk fabrics, of which we afterwards have made flags. In the pictures you can see 2 flags in front of the yurt. I have also felted a flag for you, with silk tops in the colours of the rainbow, representing all people.

The footsteps on the flag make contact with each other. It was a very special day. All our wishes for peace are inside the flag. By hoisting the flag, you let our wishes come true.

We enjoyed it very much to be also connected with you, on this wonderful day.”

Marie leaves us with the foundations of Peace Felt and wonderful insights to meditate upon on this International Day of Peace:
“It is in the giving that we receive.    By creating and giving from our hearts, without expectation of return; by giving our attention to love and peace and unity, we, as the giver, receive that back.

We all deserve the joy and freedom of receiving without obligation. It can be so hard to accept a compliment or a kind word, the receiving of a gift of love and returning only gratitude and appreciation is powerful for both the giver and the receiver.

What we put IN to what we are doing, we energize. If we make something for someone else with love in our hearts, they feel it.

We are Many, We are One. When we join together in a common thought, we connect and energize that thought. Let us plant seeds of Love, Community and Support through our passions and our past times.”

Thank you Marie, for your thoughtful words, and for initiating and sharing the wonderful exchange that is Peace Felt.

You can read more about Peace Felt and learn about particpating next year by visiting www.peacefelt.org and on Facebook.

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.

We’ve been having so much fun making and using these flying felties with our young visitors this summer.  I think they are better than fireworks and just as beautiful as they fall from the sky! Children from the age of three can make them, with some assistance, and both children and adults have fun tossing, flying and chasing them!

Materials:

1 wooden or plastic egg 2.5-3.0 inches (6.5-7.5cm)  long

0.3 ounces (8 grams) wool roving or batting in assorted colors

5 x 30 inch (75cm) lengths of ribbon in assorted colors

1/2 cup beans, rice or lentils ( we used black turtle beans)

bowl filled with warm water

natural dishsoap

small piece of bubble wrap

sewing needle and thread

Tip: sometimes we’ve used the felted pouches that remain once we’ve finished using a felted soap scrub- perfect for flying felties, or little felt treasure necklaces!

Open up the wool fibers by gently stretching them, keeping the wool in long strands. Wrap the egg completely with the wool,  turning and wrapping like winding a ball of yarn.  The egg should have about three layers of wool wrapped around it. Play with alternating colors.  Feel for any thin spots and add more wool with an extra wind covering that spot.

Cup the wool egg in your hands, add a drop of dishsoap, and dip into the bowl of warm water.

Lift the wool egg out gently and start squeezing it between your hands, turning occasionally. Do this for a couple of minutes until the wool develops a felted skin. Start rolling the wool egg in your hands. Rolling…rolling…rolling….Roll the wool egg under your hand on the bubble wrap.

Bowls of soapy water and bubble wrap hold lots of potential for play!

To finish felting, roll the wool egg in the bubble wrap and roll for a few minutes.

Squeeze out any excess water and leave the wool eggs to dry.

Cut open the bottom of the wool egg in a cross. Squeeze out the egg. Fill with beans or rice.

Sew up the opening at the bottom of the feltie, leaving a small opening to insert the ribbons.  Tie your selected ribbons together  in a knot at one end, insert the knot into the opening in the feltie, then finish sewing up.  Be sure to stitches are tight so no beans will fall out and to secure the ribbons well!

Ready for flying!

Hold the feltie by the ends of the ribbon, wind up and toss and watch the feltie fall to the ground, ribbons flying brightly behind. Make a chalk target on the ground and see if you can get your flying feltie to land inside.  Toss and juggle with a friend….Hours of summertime flying fun!

Fiona Duthie is a regular contributor to Living Crafts.

In her studio on Salt Spring Island, BC, she creates in a bountiful beauty of color, wool, and texture, inspired by the natural world. Fiona designs fine feltwork, felting and knitting patterns, gives workshops in natural craft, and runs her hand dyed, artisan fibre company, Kattikloo. You can read more about her fibers, projects and creative living at www.kattikloo.com and on Facebook.