Monday, December 28, 2009

Needle felting makes a "cameo appearance".










I have been going crazy trying to find time to do this project! I love needle felting, and now you can fall in love too. I have the "felting mat" (which looks more like a grooming brush for my horse) and the felting needle tool available on my Open Sky sore. I only mention this because after seeing Martha Stewart do a demo on her show, I had some difficulty finding these tools. These are not her tools, but they work the same. You can use wool felt, shrunken (felted by the hot water wash and hot drying process) wool sweaters and vintage blankets, or even plain old felt from the craft department. That's fine for a tree skirt or a x-mas stocking, but for a pillow or a project that will get more day to day manhandling you may want something more durable and lasting. Wool felt is actually quite luxurious!
Cut the wool shape to be appliqued onto the background fabric.
Cut the background fabric the same size as the pillow you are using- if you are making a pillow. So, 16" x16" if you have a 16"x 16" pillow.
Start felting the cut shape by placing it where you want it on the background fabric and place this over the felting mat.
Start in the center and work out toward the edges.
If you have the finer point needle tool use this at the edges of your silhouette as shown.
You will begin to see how to the two fabrics start to mesh together and get fuzzy on the back side. (I rather like this ghostly effect on the reverse side, too.)
When the appliqued silhouette is completely at one with the other fabric, you can sew the felt squares wrong sides together, leaving one side open.
Squeeze the pillow in and stitch up the fourth side. Trim the edges with a pinking shears. Felt doesn't fray! YEAH! Dress her up with a vintage pin or earring.

5 comments:

nina said...

What a zen task needle felting is! I love what you've done here - the pin is a gorgeous addition. As always, love your craftiness :)
Happy New Year!

Jennifer said...

gorgeous..super for a class!!!

Rachel@oneprettything.com said...

This is such a wonderful idea! Storybook Woods emailed me about this and I'm so glad she did. It's gorgeous! I would love to link to this if you didn't mind.

EvaForeva said...

Brilliant! Thanks so much for sharing~
I so wanna do it :-)

mo said...

I love it! So pretty!