Felt Fun

Ever since I visited this incredible exhibition on felting design years ago at Cooper Hewitt I've been fascinated by the possibilities of felt to create new fibers and shapes. The ability to improvise with it seems so endless and broad. The exhibit showed no examples of needle felting. There were several video installations on rural and industrial approaches to the process of water felting. Although I loved watching it seemed a bit messy and impractical for me to attempt in my tiny apartment. I became aware of needle felting a year or two ago in the Blythe World and the world of handmade craft on etsy.

Maybe about a year ago, my friend Paula of Madebypabilita showed me this really amazing needle felted brown fox scarf made by Erica Fustero and I just adored it. I liked the sturdy yet soft feel of it and I liked the sense of work put into shaping and molding it. Aside from the sweet design, what I feel makes it unique is it's medium outside of the sewing, knitting crocheting world of designing for Blythe. "Alternative" design materials are very exciting to me especially when they are so widely accessible and so many things can be done with them. We have all seen adorable felted animal plushies before but don't always know what goes into making them or that's possible for anyone to do this with a little patience and instruction.

Felted Wolf Ornament at Urban Outfitters

I'm certainly no expert. I just started last week with a felting kit my lovely fiancee got me on out anniversary, but I was just so excited by it! I just loved the process so much. I watched a few video tutorials and whipped up my own felted Blythe scarf inspired by Erica Fustero's but instead of a fox I modeled it on the white wolf. It's got a very cozy wintery vibe about and I just love it. It makes me feel so good whenever I look at it. It makes me want to learn how to do so much more. The three dimensional figures require a lot more skill than I have at the moment but I really hope to take a stab at them in the future when I have more time. I love the fact that you can never make any two felted creations identical. Really, like any other handcrafted work, each piece can't help but have it's own signature identity that makes it more or less different than the last. It's one of the things I love most about making stuff.

Angora models my needle felted "White Wolf" scarf