DIY: Felted Matroyshka and Pysanky Eggs

If you've been hanging around this here blog for a bit, then you know I've been hosting a weekly craft night right here with the focus being on felting. In order to lead the craft nights the best that I can, I've been pushing myself to explore the one area of felting that I'm not super comfortable with: wet felting. Y'all know I'm all about the needle felting...but this wet felting stuff is a bit of a learning curve. 

So far, I've wet felted a beaded necklace, a clutch and now this matroyshka doll. Here's how: 

One thing that you have to commit yourself to when it comes to wet felting is that it is time consuming and requires patience. This is not something you can rush. The felting process takes time...in fact, it took me probably 45 minutes to an hour from start to finish to complete the wet felting process. After drying out over night, I was able to start needle felting. 

This also proved to be pretty time consuming...but I do love needle felting. That being said, I had originally planned to make another doll to fit inside this one...but I don't know if I'm ready to make that kind of time commitment! 

Like I said in the video, when I started needle felting, I didn't go into it with much of a plan. I really wanted to focus on the patterns on the clothing: dots, stripes, flowers. 

The beauty of needle felting is that it really helped to form, shape and stabilize the doll. I was concerned that when I removed the wooden form, the entire doll would collapse but it remained relatively solid...but the needle felting really proved to make it solid. 

Now, getting the diameter of the opening of both the top and bottom of the doll did prove to be a little tricky. To make them the same, I did have to do a lot of needle felting around the rim of both to get them to be the same width. 

 Creating the flowers and patterns was really my favorite part.

I thought the doll should be wearing an apron which is why there is a blue tie in the back. 

After felting the doll, I realized that I could felt around any number of objects floating around...so when I spotted Easer eggs at the grocery, I decided to give them a go! I know y'all probably have a ton around your house too. This is a much quicker wet felting project then the doll, that's for sure. Here's a quick video on how I did it:

I've got a lot of felting videos currently up on my YouTube channel that you might want to check out. I've also been posting one minute felting videos on my Instagram if you are interested. 

I totally had intentions of needle felting the other egg as well...but that went out the window with the second matroyshka doll. On to the next best thing!

Looking forward to seeing you all this Wednesday at 8pm CST for our next craft night right here!