Birthday Goodies and a Giveaway for you!

Monday was my birthday and I turned another year older. I had a nice quiet day at home and worked on my new projects. Today I got another surprise box from Kelley, like the box of fabrics wasn't enough. I am really going to have to get going on my regular quilting this year, lots of beautiful new fabrics to work with. She also sent me the wool book that I have been looking for, what a wonderful surprise, love the japanese quilting. I love the punch needle she made me, it will go into my sewing room, she does such beautiful prim pieces. I feel very spoiled;)

And since it is Thanksgiving, I thought it was a good time for an epattern giveaway. Leave a comment on this post and I will draw a name on Friday night. The winner will get their choice of any one of my epatterns. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Experiments in Needle Felting

A friend sent me a package of needle felting wools that she no longer used, and I have always wanted to try it, so was thrilled to get the package. I do a number of crafts, so I cannot afford to buy more equipment and found ways to cut the cost. The first thing I needed was a felting tool. I used my Jo anns coupon and got a clover three prong tool, it is the perfect size and less than the large one. The three prongs work great on the types of projects I do and you can go to one prong if you are doing fine work.
They sell some type of brush to needle felt on, but I used an old block of heavy foam that was in my camera case.

I wanted to try it with wool leaves, to see how it worked and looked for stems, instead of couching or stitching them. I really like the look and I took a picture, but it looks like the yarn is just sitting there in the picture. I had to use flash at night, but you can get the idea of how it works. What I wanted to test, was what can be punched into the wool. I tried two wools, one lopi and heavy and one old stiffer wool I had, that is the two darker ones on the right. The greens are acrylic yarns that I found in a thrift.



And here are the results. The lopi was hard to punch, thick and unruly. It would be good for larger projects though. The stiffer, thin wool worked beautifully but my favorite was the green with white bumpy stuff in it. It punched in, as well as, the wool and the texture gives it a nice look. The green and brown worked ok, but the extra darker color, did not punch in, as well as, the yarn itself.

So here you have it, nothing special, but good for practicing to see how yarns work in wool. On the flower, I used the green and white bumpy stuff, ( there is that technical jargon again;). It really made a nice center for the flower and punches beautifully when wound into a circle. Another difference was the wools. The leaves are a softer wool and the square is a very dense, felted wool. I think the denser wool works best with the felting. It will be fun trying the real roving in projects, as well.