My newest craft obsession.
I'm a big fan of low-maintenance, low-supply, pick-up-put-down crafts. My stamp carving is a good example - you buy yourself a carving tool, some rubber/erasers and a stamp pad and you're set. There's none of this 15 pair of pliers business, or different wire and thread and fabric and fabric and fabric and fabric (not that I'm not a huge fan of hoarding fabric mind you..). You just carve and stamp and voila, you're done! Instant gratification.
So needle felting is a lot like that. You need a bit of high density foam (I got mine from Clark Rubber for you Aussies who want to have a go), a needle felting needle and some roving. And that's all. And then you stab the bejeebus out of it (and probably your finger a few times if you're anything like me) until you've made a wonderful soft fibre sculpture out of what used to be just a pile of fluff and air.
Of course, once bitten with the needle felting bug I of course needed to go out and get my hands on every colour I could, and can you blame me? It's like a fuzzy rainbow of roving to play with!
( Roving is the actual term for the fluff+air I was talking about before. It's the stage of wool in between shearing it from the sheep and washing and brushing (carding) it, and spinning it into yarn. )
I started off with Merino roving from Spotlight, which was nice but it's really better suited to wet felting than dry (needle) felting, so I took myself off to the best little hidden secret this side of the city - Winterwood, in Park Orchard.
( I do realise this photo makes me look a little bit like a stalker, but I was too shy to ask if I could take a photo inside..)
Safely back in my car with my roving booty, I couldn't even wait to get home to tear into the brown paper bag and have a play.
The soft, fluffy corridale and romeny wool balls spilled out on the passenger's seat and my breath caught in my throat. I looked around and the car park was desserted. Surely it would be okay if I had a little play before the drive home? I mean... surely people would understand. How could they not? Look at those colours!
Luckily for me, I was ready to go with my portable felting foam piece. It's a nice handy triangle shape so that it sits nice and snug in my lap with the big flat surface to felt on - although it's all fun and games until I get distracted and stab too close to the edge and into my thigh.
This foam is cut from a MUCH larger piece that I use for felting at home. We're talking a 3 foot x 1.5 foot square of foam here people. I'm not taking any chances!
The pin is there to hold finished felted things in place so I don't lose them, and it also comes in handy when trying to felt tiny things like that little bead up there - I can hold it down against the foam with the pin as I stab and keep my delicate little fingies out of the way of the barbed needle!
At the moment I've graduated from beads and sleepy sheepies, and am working on something more elaborate with a wire armature. I'm very excited by how it's coming together, especially as I was never very good with clay-type sculpting in art at school! I love that you can add more if it's too small or snip some extra fluff away with your scissors if you've added too much. It's so organic.
I'm hooked.
So needle felting is a lot like that. You need a bit of high density foam (I got mine from Clark Rubber for you Aussies who want to have a go), a needle felting needle and some roving. And that's all. And then you stab the bejeebus out of it (and probably your finger a few times if you're anything like me) until you've made a wonderful soft fibre sculpture out of what used to be just a pile of fluff and air.
Of course, once bitten with the needle felting bug I of course needed to go out and get my hands on every colour I could, and can you blame me? It's like a fuzzy rainbow of roving to play with!
( Roving is the actual term for the fluff+air I was talking about before. It's the stage of wool in between shearing it from the sheep and washing and brushing (carding) it, and spinning it into yarn. )
I started off with Merino roving from Spotlight, which was nice but it's really better suited to wet felting than dry (needle) felting, so I took myself off to the best little hidden secret this side of the city - Winterwood, in Park Orchard.
( I do realise this photo makes me look a little bit like a stalker, but I was too shy to ask if I could take a photo inside..)
Safely back in my car with my roving booty, I couldn't even wait to get home to tear into the brown paper bag and have a play.
The soft, fluffy corridale and romeny wool balls spilled out on the passenger's seat and my breath caught in my throat. I looked around and the car park was desserted. Surely it would be okay if I had a little play before the drive home? I mean... surely people would understand. How could they not? Look at those colours!
Luckily for me, I was ready to go with my portable felting foam piece. It's a nice handy triangle shape so that it sits nice and snug in my lap with the big flat surface to felt on - although it's all fun and games until I get distracted and stab too close to the edge and into my thigh.
This foam is cut from a MUCH larger piece that I use for felting at home. We're talking a 3 foot x 1.5 foot square of foam here people. I'm not taking any chances!
The pin is there to hold finished felted things in place so I don't lose them, and it also comes in handy when trying to felt tiny things like that little bead up there - I can hold it down against the foam with the pin as I stab and keep my delicate little fingies out of the way of the barbed needle!
At the moment I've graduated from beads and sleepy sheepies, and am working on something more elaborate with a wire armature. I'm very excited by how it's coming together, especially as I was never very good with clay-type sculpting in art at school! I love that you can add more if it's too small or snip some extra fluff away with your scissors if you've added too much. It's so organic.
I'm hooked.