I've been going through my blog and tidying things up. Earlier back in October / late September I had to move my serious painting work over to my new blog and get it all organised and curated over there - that is something which is still ongoing. I decided to keep this old thing to use as a base for sharing my more craft-based projects, documenting my new challenges and learning curves as I get to grips with new techniques and ideas.
Currently I have taken to needle felting. I first got into felting over the summer and had a go at wet felting myself some dreadlock extensions to braid into my green hair. I chose a deep jade green and a brighter forest green and found the wool wonderful to work with. I went through about 700g of wool in, roughly, a week. I found myself well and truly addicted.
Going back to college after the summer I had a lot of things on my mind, so I didn't do much crafting at home for a while. But recently I've got the itch to get back into fibre arts - I'm even taking up crochet and knitting again!
Just before Halloween I bought 2 little glass pumpkin lanterns for myself and my boyfriend, and thought about the possibility of making some of my own decorations for Halloween. I knew I wanted to make some more pumpkins, so I tried various things like paper mache and clay, but found I wanted something more soft and gentle to touch - and something that wasn't nearly as heavy. I remembered my previous experiment with felting so browsed the web for some ideas. I figured that wet felting a pumpkin wasn't going to be as easy as making the dreadlocks, and I came across various needle felting projects for pumpkins, so decided that this was the way to go. I managed to buy myself some more wool, a foam pad and a set of needles to begin working with and as soon as I received them I hurried to my room to begin experimenting again.
I found the soft Merino felted perfectly with the needles - I had no idea which needles I should really be using, so went for the middle option of gauge 38. I'm still not too sure right now about what needles to use but I haven't had any broken needles yet, and my pumpkins haven't fallen apart, so I assume I'm doing something right here. I plan on buying a book, or browsing the library for more information on felting so I can begin working on more complex things and continue learning about the techniques in the process. (I generally prefer reading a book to looking on the Internet - college get us into these habits of trying to find more possibly reliable sources.)
I'll post some pictures of my pumpkins up here as I make some more! I hope to maybe sell some of my little crafts so I can buy some carding tools to make more interesting looking bits and bobs. :)
