Stories from the Farm

Thank you for all of the nice comments on the previous post!  There were a few questions that I thought I would answer in this post as well as give a little felting tutorial.

Yes, I will be selling supplies in my studio and I have some really exciting stuff coming later this week!  Currently I have – Jacob roving, Shetland roving, Alpaca roving, and Merino roving in a rainbow of colors, felting needles, high density foam, jacob horn buttons, felted items, and jacob felt sheets.  I have really fun felting kits, books, felting tools, felted purses, and hand carders on their way!  I will have everything available for sale on my website very soon! 

Claire asked how Julie felted such a large piece and I will show you how she did it in the following tutorial.  You can also make a large piece of felt by using the wet felt method. 

I have large felt sheets that are made out of our jacob wool at Superior Fibers and they make excellent canvases to work on.

For this project, I am using a piece of jacob felt that is approximately 12″ x 12″.  I also have some merino roving in the sandstone color and sage color (not pictured), a felting needle, and a large piece of high density foam as a working surface.  The high density foam is so nice to work on.  When I first started needle felting, I bought a cheap piece of foam and that is exactly what it was 🙂  I would find pieces of foam in the back of my projects.  I was amazed at the difference that the high density stuff makes.

Start by pulling little pieces off the roving and needling them into the background felt. 

You can blend different colors of roving by blending them with your hands in small amounts. 

Continue until you have the color and pattern that you want.

Here is my finished piece. 

Once you have created the background, you can felt additional items onto it.

It can be simple, like my little sheep here…

or more detailed, like Aimee’s finished Rooster.  Yes, she is the new felting fanatic that I was talking about in the title.

This is her 2nd piece – simply amazing!