Needle Felting

I've got to confess.  There are people who LOVE to needle felt, especially by machine.  I have not been one of those people.

Our program at Explorers (read yesterday's post) this month is on needle felting.  I said I would lead it if no one else came forth.  I adjusted my attitude toward needle felting, so here I am, ready to lead the program tomorrow.  Last week I went to a friends house to make my samples on her felting machine as I have not gotten one......yet.

It actually was the first time that I kind of had fun with it.  Maybe my attitude adjustment?
Below are pictures of my samples.

This is washed wool from a skirt I bought at Goodwill.  I used wool yarn to felt onto the wool fabric.

This is a piece of Nylon (or polyester) curtain fabric.  I tried to felt wool roving on it.
Polyester and Nylon do not felt well and fibers do not felt well on them.
Any sheer fabric that is used crinkles up like on the right side.  That could be a cool effect.

I've taken the same curtain fabric as above, but this time I put solve on the bottom, layered with the curtain fabric
then wool roving and wool yarn, and topped it with solvey.  I wanted to see if the solvey kept the fabric from crinkling up.  The part on the right has been washed, the part on the left is before washing the solvey out.  With the solvey, the sheer fabric did NOT crinkle up nearly as much, but because it is synthetic fabric the needle felting was not very successful.

This sample is done on burlap!  It worked really well.  This is the back side, and almost looks like a smiley face.

Turn the above sample over and here is the front.  I used cotton fabric, wool roving,
silk roving, silk ribbon, silk taffeta, wool yarn, and eyelash yarn.

This is wool roving on cotton velveteen.  It also was
a very successful sample.

This sample is done on acrylic felt.  On the left side I used a variety on yarns.  This could be cut up
and used as ATC's.  The one on the right includes some Angelina.  When you use something
like Angelina you need to needle some wool or silk roving on top to hold it down.

As close- up of the above.

The backing for this is cotton Home Dec fabric.  It also felted successfully.

This is the last piece I did.  I am going to make it into a cover for  one of my sketchbooks.

The pictures don't really do the samples justice.

Tomorrow at 1PM if you are in/near Lynchburg VA come to the program and play with us at Quilted Expressions on Old Forest Rd.

Sew see you later

Bette