Felt on Felt Action

I got a chance to mess around with Janome’s fancy needle felting machine last week, and it is all kinds of mad fun!  I’ve done a lot of manual needle felting in the past, even demo-ing it on Stylelicious and in Not Another Teen Knitting Book –so I was eager to see what the big woop about the machine version was.    It’s cool because it allows you too free-form felt in no time, using yarn, roving or scraps of certain fabrics.  For detailed work like geometric shapes or letters , I’ll probably always stick with the original method of using a single needle and foam square (I’m old-school like that)–but for larger pieces or when I’m going for a collage effect, I’m totally a machine convert.  

As I’ve now entered what I like to call the ANFM (after needle felting machine) Era, I also needed (I promise, there was need involved) to make something to commemorate the occasion. Combining my current felt obsession with my vow to stop wasting so much yarn, I whipped up this little Seaweed pillow.  The body and weird grassy-looking shape are made from plain old felt, and the underwater-foliage-looking design is needle-felted using scraps of Vegas yarn in colors: Casino and Martini.  I kinda dig it!

Enough about felting, how are you feeling?   In the mood to learn to knit?  (I know, cheap segue. They can’t all be winners.)

If you’re in Austin and have wanted to learn but just haven’t yet OR are in need of a refresher course, I’ll be teaching at Craft-O-Rama for several Thursday evenings over the next 2 months beginning, this week.  Check out their site here for scheduling and sign-up info.  Hope to see you there!

Time to pick up the boys from school.  Ciao for now!

xo,

Vickie