Knitted nest

The nest upside down


Found this great pattern at: http://naturalsuburbia.blogspot.com/search/label/Knitted%20Nest

Then I wet felted the eggs for all the nests. These nests are for an Easter swap.

wet felting

K and I wet felted using cookie cutters. I think I must not have enough patience because I never could get the wool to felt totally. I ended up needle felting them to make sure they held together. I kept meaning to take a picture when the sun was out but never remembered. Oh well.

Advent Calendar Finished (Kinda)

The advent calendar is finished (kinda). Next year I plan to add animals, but it is now in working order. I'm really excited to start december first.

K's little foot popped in there.

I know, I'm no artist, but these are the little slips I'm putting in the calendar to represent what we'll be doing that day.

I ended up using a small curtain rod to hang it by. Here is a close up of the pockets. They are each needle felted on wool felt.

Updates

Here's an updated picture of my advent calander. I finally was able to get the felt I wanted to make the pockets. I'm about half way done needle felting the numbers on (not shown). I should be right on track to get this done on time. I hope.

Anyway so I'm sure you have all noticed that I've been pretty absent lately. Well that is because we are expecting another baby! yay! So why would that explain my absence? Well I've had pretty horrible nausea that only gets worse by looking at the computer. I'm 15 weeks now and it has not let up a bit, so I mostly only get on the computer for a quick e-mail update. So my updates will probably be spotty and in big clumps until I can get back on my game. This also means that when I am here to update everything will be quite behind. Anyway I have a few more posts for this clump and then hopefully won't be gone for too long. :)

Wet felting the advent calendar

Laying the lightly needle felted scene on bubble wrap. I then poured warm water and soap on top of it. Next I rolled it up and then rolled it back and forth for about 10 minutes.
Here it is felted, but still soapy.
Rinsed off and starting to dry.
Why these are not flipping beats me. Anyway here is part two of my advent calendar. I have finally felted it so I don't have to worry about K getting ahold of it and pulling it apart. Today I ordered the rest of the felt that I'll need to make the calendar part. I'm going to make 25 little pockets below it and needle felt the numbers on. Might be awhile for my next update as I need to wait for the materials to arrive in the mail.

felted acorns

K and I are taking a parent tot class at one of our local Waldorf schools. We are right in-between two Waldorf schools so we have now taken a class at each of them. We are loving this one! The school is beautiful, they have chickens, a little shop, a huge garden, and a wonderful homemade playground. Anyway this past week we made felted acorns. K insisted we make one pink.

Well shoot. I ended up loading this directly onto blogger from my computer but now I can't tip the image. Well anyway it is a tiny preview of the advent calendar I am making for K this year. This is pre-felting of course. I still need to find some bubble wrap to finish the job. My plan for the calendar is pretty elaborate and there is no way I'll finish it this year, but I want to have the advent pockets hang below this winter scene. In each pocket I will make a felt woodland animal that can be added to the scene as the days progress. I'm just hoping to get the scene and the pockets done this year. Then I can just add animals as time goes on.

Water swap sneak peek

This is my 2nd felted ball. I tried things a little differently this time. I first wet felted the ball, then needle felted the detail, then wet felted it again. One of the problems is that the roving doesn't really wet felt well. I think with the next one I will do a little needle felting to get a good shape and then wet felt.

Anyway the theme of the swap is water. These balls will be nice and squishy and would be great for playing in the pool. I now have about 10 days to whip out 4 more.

Also I have signed up for my first art fair! I'm joining a bunch of friends and taking out a table at the Ferndale DIY fair. I'm really excited but need to get busy making gnomes. I'm thinking I might make some simpler gnomes to go with my more elaborate gnomes. We'll see what I can get done in the short amount of time that I have.

Summer flies

I can not keep the flies out of our house. It is driving me nuts. K has been walking around telling the flies to leave the house. I think it means we need to fix some holes in our screens. Anyway I made this little fly for K to play with and to join our other summer creatures on the nature table.

Bee Gnome

I've finished my bee gnome! I love his hat. I needle felted the black stripes and wings. I don't know why I didn't incorporate needle felting into my gnomes a long time ago. Anyway he is a great addition to our summer table which I've been totally neglecting. What kind of gnome should I make next?

Felted Ball

I've been racking my brain on what to make for my cousin's baby shower. I decided to try my hand at a needle felted ball. The inside has an easter egg with a bell in it so it rattles. I'm pretty happy about how it turned out. I got the idea for a felted ball from Living Craft Magazine. My husband just bought me all the back issues for my birthday and I am loving them! Its actually pretty overwhelming because I want to make everything.

Anyway I loved making this ball so much I'm thinking I need to make K one and then perhaps make a couple for Etsy. We'll see.

A Homemade Easter

Here are a few pictures from easter morning. I loved using K's new silks as the basket stuffing. I think I'll keep that up every year. It was fun to fill his basket with lots of homemade goodies. As you can see from the pictures the little blue bag made by a swapper was his favorite. In another picture he is playing with a tiny bunny I felted.

Needle Felted Bird

Ok I'm getting a little better at this. K loved the outcome of this bird. I made her just in time to sit on our wet felted eggs on the nature table. K keeps walking over to the nature table and going, "tweet tweet tweet." Its funny how much joy he gets out of that table for only being 1.5.

I think I'm going to try some farm animals next as I just found a wonderful wooden barn at a mom to mom sale. K has been having fun with it but it really needs a pig, cow, horse, and sheep.

I also have a crazy idea that some day in the future I want to make him a farm playscape to go with the barn. Something that combines knitting, crocheting, sewing, and felting. I'll get to it eventually. :)

1st needle felting attempt

Ok not so great. I used a book as a guide (which I've forgotten what it is as I returned it to the library) and wasn't very pleased with the result. The book combined sewing and needle felting to put the animal together. Since I've made this I've already produced better results. More to follow. Anyway K won't know the difference and I can pop this in his spring basket.

Wet Felted Eggs

We tried our first go at wet felting. K did a great job of getting enough soapy water all over the floor that we have a nice shiny clean floor. We had a lot of fun, but boy do your hands get pruney. I attempted to make a nest for the eggs to sit in, although it didn't turn out quite like I wanted. Oh well. I'm excited that spring is around the corner and we can soon add these to our nature table.
Oh and that little felted chunk of wool? That was K's.