I Am In Love With Needle Felting

Now for a final update on last week's girlie sewing - the gift in total.

One pretty, frilly apron, as modeled by Cuddlepie.

One silver box with some needle felted biscuit treats and a set of eight fabric tea bags.

And all wrapped in a hand-dyed pink, purple and yellow playsilk to use as a tablecloth for her little tea party table.

I had such fun making the needle felted treats. I am pretty sure the boys need some!

This is how I made the gingerbread man.
This is a good Youtube video, Needle Felting Basics for Beginners.

I started out with this Ashford Needle Felting kit, but have since bought more wool to top it up.

Fill the gingerbread cutter with wool and start to felt it down. I filled it to the top and the wool felted down to about a third of that. Once it is firmly felted down, add another layer. Keep doing this until it is thick enough.
See how I am felting this straight onto the foam mat? No! Do not do this! The foam mat should be covered in a piece of flannel fabric, so your felted piece doesn't become part of the foam. I found this out the hard way!

See all the little bits of foam stuck in there? I had to trim them all out and then felt another layer on top. 

Once you are happy with the thickness of the gingerbread body, lift it from the foam and needle felt the edges and any stray pieces of wool. 

Then it is time to add the icing. Take some white wool and roll it between your palms until you have a long, relatively tight roll. Start to needle felt it down around the edges of the body.

I found that as I needle felted, I had to keep the tension on the roll of wool. And sometimes even twisted it to make it tighter and skinnier.

Once you have gone all the way round, take a few tiny pieces of white wool and roll into balls for the eyes and buttons. Take the smallest piece of wool you can and then halve it. You will not believe just how tiny a piece of wool you need to make the eyes and buttons. Also make a teeny tiny roll of white wool to make the smile. Needle felt these in position. As they are so tiny, you would need to hold them and needle felt very close to your fingers - dangerous! You can hold them in place with the rounded edge of a teaspoon.

When you are finished, neaten up all the edges by needle felting into the sides.

The other biscuits were done freeform. For the round ones just form a ball of wool and start felting it, adding more where needed. For the square ones, I start with a long rectangle of wool and fold it into thirds to make a square. Start needle felting until you are happy with the shapes. Add embellishments as desired - icing, sprinkles, some cherries, choc chips, anything you can imagine!

Needle felting is a forgiving medium - there are no rights or wrongs, just play around with the wool. It is not forgiving on fingers however, if you happen to miss! I drew blood a few times and broke one needle by hitting the cookie cutter. The needles are quite fragile and break really easily.

Needle felting is SO much fun! I am hoping to try out some 3D shapes soon.

Like these ones

Look how realistic this one is!

Linking today with Frontier Dreams for Keep Calm Crafting On.