How to Make a Needle Felted Pumpkin

October 20, 2017 · 6 Comments

How to Make a Needle Felted Pumpkin

There’s something about autumn that makes me want to leave the sewing machine alone a little bit and reach for some woolly crafts.

I discovered wet felting a few years ago, and if you’re looking for a new craft to try, I’d recommend it!. The wool rovings are lovely to work with and it’s quite easy to get pleasing results, even if you generally don’t consider yourself to be artistic.

Needle felting has been on my list of things to try. I’ve never used wet felting it to make something solid, only pictures, and to be honest, I didn’t fancy clearing up all the mess and the water afterwards!

With wet felting, it’s the warm water, soap and rubbing that makes the fibres felt together.

With needle felting, the needle has barbs on it that catch the fibres, so the felting occurs that way.

It took me an hour or so to make a pumpkin, although the process could be speeded up with one of those pen things that allows you to use more than one needle.

Here’s how to make a needle felted pumpkin!

Instructions For Making a Needle Felted Pumpkin

I’ve included some affiliate links.

You Will Need

Wool roving in autumn colours (including green), felting needle, foam mat. If you don’t have a foam mat, you could use a washing up sponge instead.

Making the Pumpkins

1. Pull off some of the roving. This is easier to do if your hands are further apart. Pull the fibres apart until it’s fluffy.

2. Roll the roving into a ball.

3. Start jabbing the ball with the needle. Make sure you stab it all over so that it felts evenly. Just mind your fingers because stabbing yourself hurts!

As the fibres start to felt, you can shape it by poking the needle in diagonally. After a few minutes it will start to firm up. Keep going until you have a ball. It should be quite firm on the outside with no wispy bits, but still squishy.

4. To make the pumpkin shape, stab in a line from the north pole of your ball down to the south. Go over this a few times. Repeat on the opposite side. Keep going like this until your ball is divided up into little segments like a satsuma (or a pumpkin!).

5. To make the stalk, pull off some green roving and fluff it it up like you did for the pumpkin. Roll it into a sausage and start poking it with the needle.

6. Keep rolling it over and poking it with the needle. Leave one end fluffy and free. When it’s firm, fold the top over and felt it to the rest of the stalk.

7. Take the fluffy end and spread the fibres out. Position the stalk on the top of the pumpkin and using the needle, felt the stalk to the pumpkin.

Tips

To mix colours, pull the fibres apart. Put them together and keep pulling until the colours are mixed.

You can add other fibres to the outside of the pumpkin once it starts to hold its shape. Just remember that the gold stuff and the silk fibres won’t felt, so you’ll have to put a tiny bit of roving over the top, then felt it.

Remember that the felting process makes stuff smaller!

Have fun! It doesn’t matter if the pumpkins aren’t a perfect shape, because the real ones aren’t either.

Adding Fibres to Handmade Felt

March 25, 2016 · 6 Comments

Adding Fibres to Handmade Felt

I love making felt!

It is easy to do, you can get pleasing results easily and it’s a lovely, tactile thing to work with.

Making felt doesn’t require expensive speciallist equipment. Some wool rovings, a bamboo mat (like the table mats people had in the 80s), soap and hot water, a foam tube, a piece of fabric (old net curtain is perfect) and maybe some bubble wrap are all you need. There are kits available to buy on Amazon (affiliate link) or you can source the stuff yourself.

Adding fibres to handmade felt is also easy and it’s a nice way to add some interest to a piece of handmade felt.

Making Felt

I have posted about this before, so this isn’t a massively detailed tutorial. If you want one of those, please take a look at this post here.

Felt is made in 3 layers. For the first layer, the rovings are placed in one direction. For the second layer, they are placed in the other direction. For the top layer, the rovings need to be in the same direction as the first layer.

The first 2 layers are usually white. The third layer makes the picture, so you can add whichever colours you like!

When layering up the rovings, pull small amounts off and spread them out onto the bamboo mat.

Last time I made felt, the layers were quite thick and I had difficulty actually getting the wool to felt. It took a long time and lots of effort. It’s much easier if the layers are thin!

So only pull off a small amount, not more than 10 cm in length, and spread it right out so that it is very thin. It will still make a sufficiently sturdy fabric even though it is thin.

Adding Fibres

All kinds of things can be added to the top layer as part of the feting process.

I used some curly locks from Teesdale sheep, fibres upcycled from sari fabric and angelina fibres (affiliate links).

The curly locks probably would felt eventually, but the sari silk and the angelina fibres would not.

So after adding the fibres to the top layer, it is necessary to cover them with a thin layer of wool so that they stay put when it’s all felted together. I thought perhaps this would mean that they wouldn’t show properly when the felt was finished, but all it needs is a very thin layer. Just a tiny bit is enough.

Once the fibres are covered, then you can begin felting them.

The Felting Process

This can take a little while!

Cover your project with the piece of net curtain. Then you need to soak it with warm water. A towel under the bamboo mat is a good idea! Rub a piece of soap all over it until it is all soapy.

Next, rub it with your fingers in a circular motion until the fibres start to felt together. This will probably take a few minutes.

Once it starts to feel like the bits of it are not going to move around too much, it’s time to get rolling!

If you have some bubble wrap, put some between your felt and the bamboo mat and over the top of the net curtain. If not it doesn’t matter, it just speeds things up a bit.

Wrap it all round the foam tube and roll backwards and forwards. You might want to count to 50 (or 100) or time yourself. Turn it round and go again. Keep turning it so that you roll it in all 4 directions.

When it starts to felt it will shrink, so if you haven’t timed yourself, don’t worry. You will be able to see which bits you need to have a go at a bit more.

The fibres will have felted when they don’t move about when you rub them with a finger. It will also have shrunk a bit and it will look dimpled.

Finishing Off the Felting

Once you are nearly there with it, you can put the felt in hot water to help to finish the process. Putting some vinegar in it will help to remove the traces of soap. I wouldn’t recommend using malt vinegar or balsamic though! I use the same white vinegar in a squirty bottle that I use for cleaning.

Once you’ve rinsed it, pop it somewhere to dry. The felt dries out surprisingly quickly. I put mine on the radiator and it was dry within about 15 minutes.

Displaying Your Felted Picture

I attached the finished rainbow to a piece of hessian.

To do this, use some invisible thread and sew a few stitches through the back of the felt into the hessian.

I wanted to put the finished rainbow in a frame but I didn’t want to loose the woolly effect of the felt, so I removed the glass.

I’m happy with how it turned out!

Tips

Thinner layers make the felting process easier.
Warm water really helps things along. If your felt starts to feel cold, put some more warm water on it.
Soap also helps so don’t be afraid to rub on plenty!
If you don’t manage to get it finished in one go, don’t worry. You can come back to it later with more soap and warm water and start again where you left off.

Why I Made This

A few weeks ago our pastor set us all the challenge of creating something to represent the Bible and why it is special.

The most important thing to me about the Bible is that it is a book showing that God keeps his promises. And the sign that God keeps his promises is the rainbow.

So I decided to make a rainbow.

Obviously I didn’t want it to look like a child had made it! So I focused on making the most beautiful rainbow that I could, and felt was the obvious medium to choose. I decided that adding fibres to handmade felt would make it even more beautiful.

If you liked this post, you might also like these:

Fenland Landscape

Autumn Felted Picture

Autumn Felted Coasters

Linking up here.

Autumn Felted Coasters

October 11, 2015 · 6 Comments

How many times do you see or experience a view, a beautiful archway, an interesting street, or something where the light and the colours perfectly represents the season or the location, and reach for your paints or your watercolour pencils?

I have to say never. I can’t draw, or paint, or make sculptures. I did GCSE Art like a bazillion years ago. I got the lowest grade possible and I don’t mean a C!

I often wish I could though. Photographs often don’t capture things in the way that a painting can.

So what can you do if you want to make a picture but your drawing and painting skills just aren’t up to it?

You make felt!

Felting is much easier than you would think.

To make felt, roving (unspun wool) is spread out in layers, covered in soapy water and then rubbed or rolled until the fibres start to fuse together. Patterns or pictures can be made by arranging the roving on the top layer, or by making half felt (where it is just starting to stick together), cutting out shapes and laying then on before finishing the felting process.

A detailed tutorial for making felt can be found here.

Last year I made an autumn felted picture, which Husband said looked like animals that had been run over. I hung it up anyway! You can read about it here and here.

This year I decided to make autumn themed felted coasters.

To do this I made one large piece of felt with the background colours, then a second smaller piece and cut leaf shapes out of it. When I had felted the leaves to the background, I cut it into squares.

How to Make Felted Coasters

1. Make the main piece of felt. To do this, first lay the fibres going 1 way, then for the second layer, put them going the other way. For the top layer, add the colours that you want to use for the background of your coasters.

2. Cover the fibres with the gauzy fabric. With a wet cloth, dab the fibres until they are wet through.

3. Rub it with a piece of soap. When it is all soapy, rub it with your fingers in a circular motion.

4. Using a piece of foam tubing, wrap it up around the tubing and roll a few times, first one way and then the other.

Once the fibres have started to stick together, put it to one side.

5. Repeat the process for the piece of felt you want to make for the leaves. I only used 2 layers because I didn’t want it to be too thick. Take care not to felt it too much at this stage; you want it to just hold together.

6. Using a leaf template, cut out some leaf shapes from the second piece of felt. I used these leaf cutters that I bought for Boy 4 for his autumn sensory playdough (affiliate link). I drew round one of the leaf cutters onto a pieces of scrap fabric several times and used this as a template for the leaves.

7. Position the leaves onto the first piece of felt. Wet it all with the cloth again and rub it with the soap. Rub it with your fingers.

8. Repeat the rolling process again. Keep going until the fibres have felted together.

If you are not sure when this is, the felt should have shrunk a bit. It will probably be slightly dimpled and a lot less thick and fluffy. Also the fibres should not move about if you rub them with your finger.

9. Rinse the soap out of the felt and put it somewhere to dry. I found that the best place to rinse it was in the shower! I put it on the tray and then ran the shower. Using hot water will also help it to felt more.

10. Cut templates for your coasters from greaseproof paper. I drew round an old coaster, or you could cut squares about 10 cm x 10 cm.

11. PIn the squares to the felt and cut out.

This is wool that I have used to make felt:

And this is a wet felting starter kit.There are others on Amazon that are cheaper, but this one has everything you need including the bamboo mat and a good variety of colours.

These are affiliate links.

Making Artists’ Trading Cards

April 29, 2015 · 6 Comments

Over the last few days I have been using my watching-tv-hands-needing-something-to-do-time to make some artists’ trading cards. These are for a swap being organised by Vicky at Lucy Blossom Crafts.

As I have never made ATCs before, and being anxious to get it right, I checked the internet to find out exactly what I was supposed to do. It would seem that pretty much anything goes! The only rules are that they must be about the size of a business card and they are always swapped, never sold.

Lots of talented people out there are doing amazing drawings on theirs. I am not good at drawing. However, as it seems that I can do whatever I like here, I have decided to use textiles as this is something I can do!

These are the ones I’ve made so far.

For these two, I covered each half of the card in different fabric and I hid the join with a piece of ribbon. On the bottom half I sewed a button in the middle. I did this before sticking the fabric down!

To stick the fabric to the card, I used double sided tape. As I was concerned that the ends of the ribbon would look messy, I stuck those underneath. The business cards I used were purple and the fabric was quite thin and the purple showed through. So I stuck the fabric to the white side, then using double sided tape I stuck two cards together. This had the additional benefit of sandwiching the messy ends of the ribbon.

For this one I wove ribbon together. It was a lot fiddlier than I was expecting it to be! Using double sided tape I taped the vertical ribbons down at the back, then I stuck each horizontal ribbon at the back as I worked with it. The ribbons kept coming unstuck! It was a relief when I had finished it and I could permanently stick down the ribbon ends by sticking another card to the back.

I decided to make some felted ones too. Usually felt shrinks a lot during the process of it being made, but I bought some more roving recently and it doesn’t seem to shrink as much. Perhaps it is the breed of sheep. Anyway, the pieces of finished felt were larger than I was expecting, so I was able to make two atcs from each piece.

These are landscapes. The red sequins are poppies. It is not quite poppy time here yet but it will be in a month or two! The writing is from the Bible:

For lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come. (Song of Solomon 2:11-12)

I just thought it was nice for spring time.

For the flowery felted atcs, I added shades of pink and blue to the background of the felt. To make the circles, I twisted some of the roving around a finger before adding it to the top layer. I used sequins, beads and embroidery to make the flowers.

I was planning to put one verse on the landscapes and one verse on the flowery ones, but there wasn’t enough room! The writing was as small as I could embroider it while keeping the letters readable, so I added half a verse to each instead.

As to what to write on the back, the consensus in internetland seems to be that you put your name, email address, website, and whether it is OOAK, one of a series, or one if a limited number.

I’m looking forward to seeing what other people have made!

A Felted Fenland Landscape

April 25, 2015 · 16 Comments

One of the reasons I wanted to take up wet felting was because I felt (haha!) that the fenland landscape round here would lend itself well to the process. Because it is so flat around here, you can see for miles, and the fields give a kind of striped effect.

As the process of wet felting involves layering the wool up and down and side to side, the side to side layer would allow me to create that stripy effect easily.

I tried with with a picture of the beach at Hunstanton. It’s been nearly two years and I still haven’t finished it! Deciding to embroider it by hand was possibly a bad idea as it takes ages. The stripiness has worked well here.

This picture I made back in the autumn. As I was going for leaves here, it was more blotchy than stripy. Doing most of the embroidery with the sewing machine meant that I actually finished it! You can read about it here: An Autumn Felted Picture and An Autumn Felted Picture Part 2.

We live in such a beautiful place it was hard to choose somewhere as a starting point for a fenland landscape! I decided in the end on Tydd Gote wind farm.

I know that many people do not like wind farms and find the turbines unsightly. I however really like them! During the Middle Ages the landscape would have been dotted with windmills that powered the pumps that drained the fens of water. The windmills have mostly gone now and, although the turbines are not draining the fens, nevertheless I like to think of them as a modern day equivalent! They are harnessing the energy of the wind in the same kind of way.

How To Make a Felted Fenland Landscape

1. Using white wool roving, I made the first layer. As the third picture layer would need to be a side to side layer, I started laying the tufts from left to right rather than up and down. I pulled off tufts of wool about 10 cm long and spread them out a bit before placing them on the bubble wrap and the bamboo mat. The bits all needed to overlap a bit.

2. To make the second layer, I did exactly the same but instead of the tufts going side to side, I put them going up and down.

3. The third layer was the picture layer. I started with the sky, then layered up different shades of green for the fields. I combined some of the shades to give the impression of one side being slightly darker.

4. Before adding the turbines, I wanted to felt the background a bit first, so I covered the picture with the sheer fabric and rubbed it all over with warm soapy water. I rolled it all up with the piece of foam tubing and rolled it backwards and forwards a few times.

5. Once the fibres had started to felt together, I added the turbines. I used a longer piece of wool for the main bit and shorter lengths for the blades. Then I continued felting until the fibres were all stuck together.

6. The turbines looked a little bit indistinct, so using a zigzag stitch on the sewing machine I sewed around them. I used white for the front of the turbines and grey for the back.

I can’t decide if it needs something else. What do you think?

I love working with felt. The process is very satisfying and even if you are not artistic in the traditional sense (I can’t draw at all!), it is easy to get pleasing results.

If you would like a more detailed tutorial on how to make felt, I’ve included one here.