Is Needle Felting for You?

A quick online quiz:

1. Would you enjoy stabbing something repeatedly with a sharp object?

If you answered yes, you might enjoy needle felting!

I just took Veronica's class at Fringe on how to needle felt a little pumpkin for fall. I'd never needle felted before, but it turns out it is exactly as described above. You start with roving (or even yarn, if you really want) and stab it with a special felting needle. The needle is special because it is extremely sharp and it has little barbs on it. This make it both painful when you stab yourself, and useful for grabbing the individual fibers and encouraging them to lock together. Veronica dyed all the pretty orange roving for us, and produced the rest out of a magic box.
So here is the absurdly adorable pumpkin I made on Tuesday. We formed the base with some paper towels, then built up the rest of the pumpkin with roving. The grooves were formed by stabbing in the lines particularly hard and repeatedly. Absorb the cuteness.

But it gets cuter.
Inside lives a little brown mouse.

And he has collected an autumn leaf,

a walnut shell (not the best picture, but I swear it's cute in real life),

and an acorn.

Here he is with all his loot in his little home.

As cute as he is, I think he's going to my mom as an autumn gift. I'm not really into decorations. For years, my Christmas tree has been a neon light in the shape of a Christmas tree. It's not that I don't like holidays, I love them in fact. But I create enough clutter in my daily life that I really don't need to add seasonal clutter to it as well. Anyway, she'll appreciate it (although I hope she appreciates it $55 worth). (Also, it's a really good thing I don't factor labor into these things. The woman has her own knitting sweat shop.)