Needle Felting Birds, Dolphins, Seascapes and Sheep

It has been a reasonably productive first week back in the work space and I have been enjoying playing around with a few new ideas.

In my last post I showed some step by step photos of how it's possible to use Transfer Paints and Pens to put an image onto fabric which can then be needle felted into.

The Transfer Pen is great for this as it leaves a clean black line that can be 'coloured in' with fibres. I used this method to transfer this bird motif onto some handmade felt. I got the motif from a book and enlarged it slightly then worked merino fibres into the design using a single needle felting needle.

It has been difficult to get decent photos this week with the dull winter light but hopefully you can get the idea.

I will probably frame the original piece and have bookmarks made using prints of it.

I used the same technique to make this dolphin.

The background is all dry felted using hand needle felting and the embellisher machine. A little bit of machine stitch adds detail. The dolphin is all needle felted by hand with a bead for his eye.

Dolphin £65

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I love this piece below (am I allowed to say that I love my own work?) Well I do love this piece as it includes all my favourite colours and I really enjoy getting lots of texture into pieces like this using the embellisher machine.

The beauty of the machine is that you are not restricted to using fibres only. I have included all sorts in this piece including an old devore velvet blouse and a cheese cloth shirt. Some vintage lace makes nice frothy waves too. I'm planning a series of pieces in this style including various framed pieces, boxes, prints and cards.

I did have to tear myself away from my 'play time' to restock my Etsy shop with some Sheep Jewellery.

These brooches are now available and I plan to add more earrings and pendants next week as well.

See the Sheep Jewellery Section of my Shop here to see what is available.

Brooches £18

Earrings £18

In other news I bought my first Smart Phone along with a Chip and Pin Card Reader last weekend so that I can take Card Payments at Craft Fairs and Events.

It has been fun getting to grips with a fancy phone (thank goodness for a teenage son!)

I took this photo with it the other morning walking back along our track. I find the interconnectedness of it all via the wifi at home a bit mind blowing. I'm so used to just using my laptop for all my online business and it's interesting to see how my blog, Facebook page and shop look on a phone. It's amazing really how much technology has come on in the past few years and how quickly we have all embraced it and take it for granted already.

I'm still at the stage of enjoying all the wee noises my phone makes when I get notifications from all the apps. I'm sure the novelty of that will wear off quite soon but did you know that the Etsy Apps goes 

Cha-Ching! when someone makes a purchase? How cool is that! It sounds like an old fashioned shop till/cash register. I love that. 

❤