If you visited the Vetty Creations Facebook page yesterday, you will know that I was planning to stitch some butterflies. Did it happen?
No. Unfortunately I ran out of time. With it being holidays, my focus at the moment is more on my kids than it normally is when they are at school. They have been going to a holiday club at a local church in the morning (and having a great time), and in the afternoon, we are at home together.
Yesterday was a lovely sunny day, with beautiful warm weather. It was the perfect day for some felting in the backyard. And so we did.
As none of us had ever done it before, I did one first, with my eldest reading the instructions to me, and them helping with counting the minutes of agitation. After I had done mine and we understood the process, they did theirs, with me helping with the rolling agitation (it gets a bit tiring for little arms!)
We all enjoyed it very much. I can now say that we understand the process of how to wet felt very well. I can’t say that we came away with the most attractive creations that you have ever seen though! The girls were very happy with theirs (of course, and so they should be!) but as an attractive surface for embroidering on, I’ll need a bit more practice in learning how to “design” with unfelted wool fluff.
I’ll certainly be giving it a go again, as it was great fun, and I can see definite possibilities for embroidering on handmade felt.
There’s also a great tutorial on felting a picture for kids, on the same blog that I got my instructions from, and some beautiful inspiration on the blog itself.
Stitching butterflies today…
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
I keep meaning to have a go at wet felting, but a frozen shoulder last year pushed it to the back of my mind. Maybe I need to bring it back to the top of the list!
Dear Yvette, I love wet felting, I used to do it together with my nephew when he was little. Felt does make a good background for stitching, I did this, but before my blogging times so no pics.
When I have a definite design in mind I want to realize exactly I always lay out the wool fibers and all other things (like threads, fabric pieces) I want to integrate and hand needle felt it together. It doesn’t need to be a firm fabric but it should hold together well. Then I wet felt it. So I get both the control needlefelting allows and the firm fabric wet felting creates. Keep in mind that wool fiber shrinks but anything else you use probably not.
When I do wet felting without needlefelting first I am prepared for chance effects and enjoy them. I think in this case it is very important to use colours that go together well and are somewhat muted so the end result will look pleasing and be usable even if some colour swatches are out of place.
Didn’t mean to lecture you just thought I share my 2 cents worth. have fun!