Graham the Needle Felted Bear

This is Graham. He is a circus bear. Oh no- he doesn't WORK at the circus, he just likes to go to the circus. And he especially loves when he can get a BIG cotton candy! He is a happy bear, see his heart is full of love.

He is made by a process called "needle felting"  - this is where you take raw wool that has been carded so the fibres align, but not yet spun into yarn strands. You shape the raw wool, or roving, and then with a barbed needle you continuously poke the object until the wool fibres are locked, or felted, together. This makes a compact piece that we can use to 'sculpt' shapes. By using a wire armature inside the piece they can stand on their own and often be posed to add more live to the piece. 

Rainy Saturday Afternoon

It's been such a long cold winter for many, that I know some are envious of our rain. Some say it beats having to shovel snow, but in the snow you don't get as wet. One dog walk -even with a long raincoat- and I have to hang my rain coat, rain hat and jeans up to dry. So here I am in my Pjs just chillin.

For a change of pace I decided to pull out my needle felting supplies and see what. I came up with. Needle felting is when you take a barbed needled and poke it into wool roving (carded but unspun wool) until it "locks" together forming one solid, compact object.

Today I decide I would make a standing rabbit:

Alien Friendship Hat

This is my Alien Friendship Hat  - it's so you can always have your little friend with you - but what's unique is how much of him you'd like to share and who you'll share him with.

 Roll the rim all the way up and he's hidden so only you know he's there...

 or roll it down and let him be visible..

 

If someone sees him and you didn't want them to, you can always roll back up the

 rim and deny he was ever there is the first place... 

What? I don't have an alien on my head. What are you talking about? 

Are you feeling okay? 

The top is crocheted, the ribbing is knit and the alien is needle felted. The alien is stitched on by his mouth and bellybutton (yes, my aliens have bellybuttons, don't yours?). I may consider writing up the pattern, if you're interested let me know. 

A warm Thanksgiving

We had the most amazing Thanksgiving weekend weather - I can't remember when it was so sunny and so warm and so many of us were so happy - 25 degrees in October for us is practically unheard of. Loved it! But sadly, it's the end of "Augtober" as they called in on the TV News and back to our regularly scheduled programing - going between 5 and 12 degrees. And yesterday it was a foggy day which barely cleared in the afternoon, just enough to see the sun before it set around 6:30. Time to pull out our warm socks and winter bed covers!

And it's getting close to that really fun time if year - Halloween. I love to decorate the yard  - but not too early! Maybe next weekend, two weeks early will be fine. I don't like all the gory decorations - no monsters in cages but I do have skulls and spiders and that kind of stuff. And to also get in the mood, I made two little baby beanies for the season:

I was getting frustrated with embroidering the spider web on the hat as it just wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to, so I decided to pull out my old needlefelting box and felted it right on the hat. The wispiness of the wool roving adds dimension to the spider web. The needle felting also made it easier to get a better face on the ghostie. I might just have to conjure up a hat for myself!