Mr. Frog

Do you have the time? Mr. Frog does!

Made of wool-blend felt with hand embroidered details. Complete with removable plaid trousers and gold pocket watch! Available for sale in my etsy shop.

Wool dryer ball tutorial

Materials:

Wool roving

Panty hose

Instructions:

Begin by tying a knot in a strip of wool roving. This will form the center of your wool ball. Wrap the roving around the knot and continue wrapping until a large ball is formed. Make the ball a little larger then the desired finished size because it will shrink when you felt it.

Put the wool ball in the end of a panty hose leg and tie it off with a knot. You can put more than one ball in the panty hose, just make sure to tie a knot between each ball.

Put the panty hose containing the wool balls into the washing machine and wash for 2 cycles in hot water, no detergent. Dry in dryer on high heat until dry. This will felt the wool and make the balls firm.

Wool dryer balls are a good substitute for fabric softener and also help cut down on drying time. They work great for cloth diapers too.

Googily

I had someone contact me about making a Googily doll, from the book Jumpy Jack and Googily, by Meg Rosoff. It's her grandson's favorite book and she wanted to give him a Googily doll for Christmas.

I made him out of wool felt, like my other monster softies, but chose to make him a rag doll, with floppy arms and legs.

Pea pod ornament

Eat your vegetables!

Vera's first Christmas ornament! Three peas in a pod. The peas are needle felted wool and the outside of the pod is made of wool blend felt, which I lined with a cotton print. I'm not sure if I will make this a yearly tradition, but I wanted to at least make an ornament for her first Christmas. It would be neat for her to have a dozen or so handmade ornaments to start her own Christmas tree one day.

Want your own? Custom ornaments available in my etsy shop!

Felted Dog

Recently added to my etsy shop...

Needle Felting

I didn't know much about needle-felting until Zach bought me a needle felting kit last Christmas. Since then I've been experimenting and learning the process. Needle felting requires two things: wool roving and a barbed needle (made especially for felting). The wool roving is light and fluffy and reminds me of cotton candy. You felt the wool by stabbing it repeatedly with the barbed needle. This causes the wool fibers to stick to one another, or felt, and become dense. It's quite a long process.

Needle felting tools

My very first try I made a tiny bird with a little scarf. Then I made our cat, Cleo, which really creeped Zach out. After that a penguin.


Once I was fairly confident I new what I was doing, I made these:

Needle felted bear, bunny, and cat

They are currently for sale in my Etsy shop. Fingers crossed someone will think they are as cute as I do! Thanks to Zach for the magical Christmas gift that inspired these.