Felting

Meet our new Jacob ram – Ramsey

Posted by kenleighacres on January 5, 2009
Posted in: Felting, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, sheep. 5 Comments

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Isn’t he handsome?  He has a very sweet personality, great horns, good color percentage and the best part – no destructive behavior 😉  I had so much fun making him!

I was inspired by a couple felting sites – www.woolpets.com and www.feltpets.com – I have been browsing the internet for felting ideas because my goal for 2009 is to open a little fiber shop on our farm! 

We have the perfect little building for it.   It has one main room with a little kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.  I have been using it for fiber storage and had plans for opening a fiber shop, but was overwhelmed with how to go forward.  Over the weekend the idea came to me to teach felting classes!  My concern with opening a fiber shop was how was I going to get customers?  I am going to start small, but I have big plans and have found a couple lines of products that I would like to sell.  My brother came over on Saturday and helped me brainstorm and layout areas for shelves and a big work table.  The table is going to be reversible for wet felting on one side and dry felting on the other.  A couple ideas for classes are – 3D felting (like Ramsey), flat needle felting (like my wall hangings), and wet felting (like my scarves).  I am really excited now that I have a plan and am moving forward 🙂  I’ll keep you updated on how the little house is transforming and when you can sign up for classes!    

 

 

A Handmade Christmas

Posted by kenleighacres on December 28, 2008
Posted in: family, Felting. 6 Comments

I feel very blessed to be part of a family that is full of creative, talented people.  It was so fun to receive gifts that were handmade and now that Christmas is over I can post pictures of the gifts that my husband and I made. 

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My sister-in-law gave me this beautiful wreath.  What a fun and unique way to make a wreath, it even includes yarn that I spun on it!

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All of the great-grandsons got fun pillows made by my grandma.  They love them and it brought back fond memories for me.  We received some really fun handmade gifts as kids growing up.

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This picture is really bad, but they are a pair of earrings that my brother made.  He takes coins and lays them on the railroad track near his house.  He then does etching on them and attaches twisted wire. 

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This is the felted wall hanging that I made for my brother.  It measures 3′ x 4′.  He gave me a gorgeous log bed for Christmas last year…

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I have always wanted a log bed, but I also love the look of wrought iron beds and he included both.  It was a complete shock and I treasure it every day.

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Here is the finished wall hanging for our house and I gave it to my husband for Christmas.  This last week has been really long and I finally finished it Christmas day at my parents.  I still need to sew the ribbon along the top for hanging. 

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My husband made horseshoe wine racks.

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This wasn’t a gift for anyone, but when I showed it to my friend she had a great idea – a felted pillow…

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so, she got the first felted pillow.

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and the second felted pillow went to my very special friend, Kristine.

There were many more gifts that were given that I didn’t take pictures of.  It was a wonderful Christmas!

A good weekend for felting!

Posted by kenleighacres on December 15, 2008
Posted in: Felting, Fiber, whippet. 9 Comments

Old man winter has finally showed up here in the Northwest. We had a light dusting of snow on the ground yesterday morning and this morning. It was a very wet snow and not as pretty as a blanket of snow, so I don’t have any snow pictures.  It is supposed to get really chilly next week – in the teens at night and barely above freezing during the day.  We haven’t felt like spending any more time then we have to outside.

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My son has been playing with his trains – he has a lot of trains 😉

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Paisley has been laying in front of the fire – yes, she is wearing jammies and has a blanket covering her laying in front of a very warm fire.  A girl after my own heart 😉

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Danica has been taking the sites in – she likes to be outside, even when it is cold.  She is a busy girl and doesn’t have time to lay in front of the fire!

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and I have been felting.  I have always admired people that can paint – I certainly CANNOT, but I have found that I can paint with fiber 🙂  This isn’t done quite yet.  It still needs a blanket stitch around the edge and a couple ribbon loops on the top for hanging it.  It measures 12″ x 24″.

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I love the playfulness of this one!

I have my fiber products at a local farm store and these 2 pieces will be headed there.  I made 2 felted vests as well, one was a custom order and the other one was for the store, but I delivered those yesterday and I forgot to take pictures.

I have been working on a large wall hanging – 3′ x 4′ – for a Christmas present.  I will post pictures afterwards, I don’t want to spoil it 🙂

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and this is the wall hanging that I hope to get done for our house.  It is also a big one and my husband’s comment was that I have my work cut out for me!

Of all the fiber crafts I have tried, I definitely enjoy felting the most!

Fiberlicious!

Posted by kenleighacres on November 4, 2008
Posted in: Alpaca, Felting, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Spinning. 5 Comments

I picked up some of my fiber from Charlotte at Superior Fibers on Sunday.  I dropped it off at the Oregon Flock and Fiber at the end of September.  I love opening the bags and diving into the processed fiber.  It’s better than Christmas for me 🙂  This round I had them blend some of the rose gray fiber from Tommy, our alpaca, in with some of the Jacob fleeces.  It turned out better than I could have hoped for!

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The Jacob fiber is from Wrangler and Amber.  It is so soft.

I also had a lilac fleece from Celeste processed and it is really lovely…

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I had some black/white and lilac fleeces turned into felted sheets.

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I haven’t paid attention to yeild pecentages before, but thanks to Boulderneigh, I was curious this go around.  The average was 73%.

Now I need an afternoon all to myself to spin away 🙂

If you are interested in buying any of the above products, please visit our store at Local Harvest.

Fiber Crafts

Posted by kenleighacres on February 21, 2008
Posted in: Felting, Fiber, Knitting, Spinning. Tagged: , , , . 3 Comments

In the last year or so, I have learned how to…

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Spin…

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Knit…

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Needle Felt…

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and most recently, Wet Felt… 

and I found out that I LOVE felting, I think it is the instant gratification that it provides.  With the other projects it takes a while to see the end product.  While you are felting, you can see it right away.  This also makes it the perfect project for those of us that tend to procrastinate and work well under pressure 🙂  The most recent felting project was a ringbearer’s pillow for my sister’s wedding.

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Nothing like starting a project the day before the bridal shower!