Dimensional Needle Felting
Dimensional felting with Clover’s great felting tools is great fun, and we are blessed to have some of the most talented designers and demonstrators working with our team to produce projects that delight and highlight the versatility of our products.
Our own Beckie Hansen is one of these awe inspiring people. If anyone on the team is going to think outside the box with our tools it’s Beckie. At the International Quilt Market in Houston Beckie was demonstrating the felting tools and I want you to see some of the things she came up with.
Dimensional felting work is very popular and Beckie delighted each
demonstrator by making a dimensional felted pumpkin for us to wear at the show. Fall market is always around Halloween time so we were appropriately “embellished” with these fun accessories.
Beckie’s detail work really makes her projects come alive and each design holds imagination and her own special whimsical elements. Working with the Pen Style Needle Felting Tool, which looks like a ballpoint pen and contains three needles, makes working with small projects accurate and easy.
The Felting Needle Mat, which is “brush like,” enables smooth punching with little resistance and allows the fibers of the work to become well meshed with the basic fabric. Because the mat is like a brush, you don’t have to worry about little bits and pieces of foam becoming part of your creation.
One of Beckie’s best-known creations is the gigantic flower and dragonfly used as a focal piece in our trade show booth. Notice the smaller flowers she made that can easily be attached to a hat or purse or wherever your imagination takes you.
To make petals or leaves, Beckie felts gently around small floral wire shapes. To learn more, check out the “Whimsical Felted Flowers” project sheet.
Beckie also enjoys working with the Needle Felting Applique Molds designed to produce a completed project of different flowers as well as whimsical amimals and shapes. She loves embellishing with these mold flowers.
One of the projects I like best is the purse Beckie made from an old sweater using Clover’s D-shaped Black Bag Handles and embellished with a felted dimensional flower and free form leaves. Awesome! Recycling is always a good thing and look how cute that sweater looks as a purse.
Look in your closet or those boxes of old clothes you have put away and see what would recycle into something else … embellished, of course with a felted design.
Extra Tidbit
I recently purchased a lovely table runner kit requires cutting shapes and hand stitching with a blanket stitch. I was having trouble pinning the shapes onto the wool background so I could stitch them on. I kept sticking myself and finally realized I was working with wool and could use the Pen Style Felting Pen to “felt” them down onto the wool background, creating extra blending of the two pieces for wearability. I can punch the shapes and designs onto the background securely so they won’t fall off before stitched, and I can travel with the piece.
As you prepare for the upcoming holiday decorating give some thought to some needle felted pieces to decorate your surroundings.
