Hey, kids! If you follow me here, then you know I've been sharing all things felted (including video tutorials). I'm getting super excited about our Craft Night this Wednesday, April 5th at 8pm CST right over here. If you'd like to hear more about our craft nights and how you can join (it's free, my favorite price!) just pop over here and read more. Now, I've put in my time with two-dimensional needle felting and feel like I have that got that down pat (check out this blog post of all my needle felted wares). Wet felting...well, that's another story. But I'm determined to get better at this craft. One project I did recently was create this felted bead necklace!
I own many an item with wee felted balls on them: a handbag, coasters, a necklace and even a pillow. But I'd never learned how to make them. After doing some homework, I discovered how...and then put my own spin on it by adding spots to my dots. Here's a 3 minute how-to just for you!
Easy, right? For real, the hardest part was the time...but I just worked on them over the course of a couple evenings and then I was done!
Full disclosure: these balls are hairy (ahem) and wooly (double ahem) and therefore, slightly itchy. If you have skin that is akin to a delicate flower, as I do, then you'll probably find yourself scratching like a dog with fleas after a few hours of wear. That's why you'll often see me wearing my felted necklaces over a top.
Yes, I'm completely aware that I have the aesthetic of a twelve year old girl who occasionally drops acid. I grew up with Lisa Frank, what can I say?
These are all of my favorite colors!
I happened to have a necklace clasp in my stash (hoarding does have it's benefits) and I used a waxy string for it's strength. But you could totally use regular thread. Just make sure it's strong. If it breaks when you try to pull it, then find yourself something stronger.
Have fun, y'all! Love to see your felted items as you create them. Tag me here or shoot me an email at cassieart75@gmail.com.
Hey there, buddies! I hope y'all are doing swimmingly. Here in lovely Tennessee, we're in that moody in-between summer/fall phase which makes is impossible to dress without being horribly under/over prepared. Don't believe me? Lemme paint y'all a visual: Today it was 80% rain/80% sunny/99.2% cloudy/chance of sweating your butt off in the sunshine/chance of freezing your butt off in the shade. It's no wonder my sinuses are causing brain swelling. Tho with a brain the size of mine, a lil swelling never hurt nuthin. There's plenty of real estate between these ears o' mine. During one of those moody fall days this weekend, I had the wonderful, super-duper, uber-exciting opportunity to teach a workshop at Nashville's Frist Center for Visual Arts!
That's right, this crazy art teacherin' lady got to teach adult-sized artists my fave craft: needle felting! Our creations were inspired by the Postcards of the Wiener Werstatte which translates to the Vienna Workshop. The Workshop began in the early 1900s and was a means of turning your life into a "total work of art" (sounds fab, right?). Meaning they sold everything you could ever desire as a lovely artistic creation so that your life simply permeated art. The best seller at the time? Postcards! And that's the basis of this incredible exhibit.
My buddy Rosemary Brunton, associate educator for community engagement at the Frist, lead us through the exhibit, filling us in on the history and allowing us time to explore and sketch. When we returned to the studios, this incredible group of art teachers, fiber-arts lovers and workshop-junkies (you know who you are!) were busting with ideas for their needle felted postcards.
That's right, we created needle felted postcards! AND mailed them (more on that shortly). We created these little 4" X 6" masterpieces to tiptoe into the fine art of needle felting. It allowed the participants to watch me give a short demo and explore the medium in anyway they wanted. It was a fun and quick-ish intro for the crew. If you wanna catch a snippet of what they learned, you can check out these videos I filmed a while back that will walk you through the needle felting basics and supplies.
Supplies purchased from Amazon:
* Clover needle felting tool
* Replacement needles, fine
* Roving, variety pack of colors
* Cushion. I prefer the Clover brand bristle brush but you could use foam in a pinch
* Fabric to needle felt on. YOU CAN NEEDLE FELT ON ANYTHING. Seriously. Jersey, acrylic felt, wool felt, wool, cashmere, you name it. Shoot, sometimes even your flesh but that's usually after a glass or three of wine. Which I don't recommend.
Stabby-stabby-stabby. It's seriously a stress reliever!
Exploring on an inexpensive material like acrylic felt or muslin will allow you to really explore the medium without getting hung up on doing it "just right".
These participants did a fine job of really trying out their new craft. I love this spiral!
You can simply use roving in needle felting or you can combine it with yarn like the example on the right. I've only used wool yarn when needle felting but was told that even acrylic yarns would work.
I love the three dimensional quality of this piece!
And this one! This and the one above were created by my art teacher buddies whom I've dubbed my Pensacola Friends! These lovely art teacherin' ladies drove all the way from Pensacola to attend the workshop. They were so sweet and fun, I loved having them!
I can see this being a great exploration of the use of line and shape for older students. This piece is just so happy!
Once the postcards were complete, we wrote messages on card stock and hot glued them to the back. We popped them in the mail...but, sadly, Rosemary informed me today that they were returned to her. She was kind enough to stuff 'em all in envelopes and resend them. Lesson learned...but it was such a great idea, I thought!
Once our practice pieces were complete, we moved on to a larger format work of art. Some participants sketched their design in chalk as I often do. I love using chalk on fabric as it "erases" pretty easily (just look at any sleeve of any sweater of mine!).
Others just dove right in with the roving like this van Gogh's Sunflowers-inspired piece.
Did you know you can needle felt felt to felt? Did you know I can use the word felt in one sentence three times? How does that make you felt, er, feel? I love this piece...just wait til you see it complete!
I loved everyone's unique ideas and hearing about their inspiration. We had such a happy group that loved to share ideas, thoughts, awkward youtube videos (what WAS that hand-held needle-felting tool/vibrator thing?!).
I love the graphic nature of this piece.
And my Pensacola Friends were all about the texture! I love the idea of "yarn painting" with needle felting. I never thought of that!
Text-ure, baby! Love all the feels!
Didn't I tell y'all it was amazing?!
Did I mention that there were art teachers in the house?! This one needle felted pencils onto a pencil case that she hand embroidered. Oh! AND made that wet felted button. WHUUUUT?!
Alright, art history buffs, can you spot the artist-influence behind this tabby-cat piece? If you guessed Georges Rouault, you are correct! I love the stained glass quality of this piece.
Look how painterly this piece turned out?! I love it!
Seriously. I could not have spent my Saturday with a more fun (funner!) bunch. Thank y'all for making my workshop such a blast to teach. And special thanks to Rosemary and the Frist for allowing me to do so!
I am interrupting this post with a link to my latest felted sweater...my version of an Anthro sweater with the bonus of a DIY tulle skirt! Check it here. Hello, my name is Cassie and I put birds on things. I know, I'm so cliche that there's even a Portlandia skit dedicated to birds-on-things-itis. Which I apparently have a bad case of.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt. Audre Lorde
Oh, were truer words ever spoken? However, I'd like to just change it up a little bit, if I might, to fit my purposes: There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them with felt.
Yeah, that's better.
So, as you might recall from this post, I have recently caught the felting bug. Like, big time. Which is a really good thing because I have a mountain of thrifted, slightly boring-ish sweaters I'm just dying to felt-ify. Yet another reason to justify my hoarding ways.
I began felting this sweater one evening without any sort of plan but with an urge to put a bird on it. Before I could talk myself out of it, I felted a white paisley shape for the body, overlapping that with the red, blue and a couple specks of black. The tree branch and the leaves took no time at all.
For the back of the sweater, I found some images of birds on pinterest (if you'd like to see them, you can check out my "felting" board) and just started felting away. Originally, I had planned to felt a large tree growing up the middle back of the sweater with birds all over it. But hubs seemed to think that was too cliche and suggested I have the branches growing from the side of the sweater. Huh. Why didn't I think of that?
The birds look out of focus, don't they? That's the fuzzy nature of
felting. Which drives a nit-picky detail-oriented artist like me kinda
nuts. Also, check out that needle tool on the bottom left. A couple of you mentioned in my felting post to beware of stabbing myself. I'd done it a couple of times, but when I literally had to pull three bloody needles out of my index finger, I thought "ah! this is what I was warned about!" That quote being the g-rated version. Ahem.
After felting eleven or so birds on the back of the sweater, I added the tree branches and leaves. I know, I'm making it sound really easy. I'm not gonna lie, some of those flying birds were a bit tricky. I found the key is to work small because you can always make the bird bigger. Meaning, if it looks like a shrunken head birdie, add more felt. However, if you give it a big ole head to start then the next thing you know, you got some sort of crazy giant-headed bird monster that will frighten small children. Which, just gave me an idea...
Want some outfit details? Belt, dress and shoes: Anthro; For the Birds Enid Collins box purse: best ebay purchase ever; felty hair flower: gift from my moms-in-law. AND check out my new hair stylin's. I've been steam roller rollin' my hair almost daily and it's time consuming. This 'do took less than 7 minutes and I love it. I combed some hair forward for a faux bang and put a bumpit at the crown of my head. I braided the bottom of my hair, twisted it into a bun and pinned it with 27 bobby pins (give or take).
Next up on my Hair 'Do To Do: This Hairy Nesterpiece. BTW, ya'll need to check out one of my fave blogs The Hair Hall of Fame. So much awesomeness on heads.
And that is all. At least for now. I've got another sweater in the works after I promised myself I'd take a break. But when I recently experienced a DIY fail, I felt the need to felt again. And punch my frustrations out. While watching out for my fingers, of course.
But I promise, I'm not putting any more birds on things! For at least another 10 minutes. Now watch this funny clip. You'll like it.
Labels: elementary art, vintage clothing
cassie stephens,
fiber art,
how to felt,
how to make beads,
how to make felted beads,
needle felting,
what the art teacher wore
Did I mention that there were art teachers in the house?! This one needle felted pencils onto a pencil case that she hand embroidered. Oh! AND made that wet felted button. WHUUUUT?!
