Needle felting sampler

Honey, I shrank the kids vest!

I just couldn't give up on that teal colored wool vest (or maybe not all wool) that I wrote about here.

The color is too perfect, just what I need for my January page of the Bead Journal Project...so this time I boiled the heck out of it on the stove. Using a couple of long metal spoons, I agitated the pot for about half an hour, dipping the whole soggy mess twice into cold water baths. It did not shrink too much more from the washing machine experiment, but it did shrink some. Enough for me to call it a keeper.  

This is part of said vest, above, used as a base for a little needle felting sampler.  Although you can still see the knitting stitches in the vest material, I like it because of the texture.  Pardon the odd assortment of colors - I was going for contrast, not *art*.  The wool, yarns & fibers I played with are left to right:  hand spun wool-something that I traded for in a swap; Noro yarn (wool/mohair/silk, from Japan); hand dyed Wensleydale locks; Cascade Yarns (all wool, from Italy); hand dyed silk (throwster's waste); Merino wool roving (spiral dyed).

This was my first venture into the world of needle felting and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to tack everything down.  Lots of that ease had to do with this little gizmo:

This is a "pen style" needle felting tool, made by Clover, which is fitted at the moment with three needles but you can use only two, or even one needle, depending on the details of your hand work. I chose this style especially for its grip since I am blessed with grandma's hands, arthritis and all. You've gotta watch out for these puppies though - I think the word "barbed" is an understatement.

One last observation before I get back to the worktable...Merino roving is definitely the cat's meow!  (Apology to my dawg, sorry woofie.)  The way the roving behaves while its being felted is unlike any of the other materials I used and since you can pull off even the slightest little wisps of wool, the possibilities for subtlety and the layering of color are going to be a whole world unto themselves.

Till next time...