Felting is a lot of fun

Ebea the wee gnome

I've discovered that I really like felting. There's something super satisfying about creating something by repeatedly stabbing wool with a needle.

This us my first creation a wee gnome. I used foam and pipe cleaners for the head, body, arms and legs covered with wool roving. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make her look the way I wanted.

Now on to clothing. I knit a base for the hat and then felting the knitting. I thought about doing the same for her clothes, but I'm making them without knitting a Base first. Just straight felting with the colours I made last week. I want her clothes to look like they are made of leaves or feathers: natural. So far I'm happy with the result, but I realized I needed yellow for the veins of the leaves so I made some:

Yellow! 

Now to wait for it to dry! 

Dying Wool (in the mircowave, with food colouring)

Recently This Pin popped up on my Pinterest news feed and today I decided to try it out with some Merino Wool Roving (unspun wool) that I have for felting.

Pinterest Pin, screen capture

 I followed the instructions from the site linked in the pin. They were awesome - easy to follow and worked!

Wool Roving - unspun wool 

 I used this roving - bought at Baaad Anna's in Vancouuver -Hey there Baaad Anna's!

I wasn't totally sure if it would work since it's gray and not a pure white. But I thought I'd give it ago and see what happened. My current project is a little woodland fairy creature so if the colours turned out a little muddy (Earthy!) it really wouldn't be a problem.

Ready for the wool

 I wanted to make Red, Blue and Green. I used basic food colouring and close to 2 tablespoons of vinegar in the jars.

I wanted an orangy red - so I added a bit of yellow to the red.

Ready for the mircowave

 Using take out Chopsticks pressed the wool in to the dyed water. Right away it picked up the colour.

Then into the mircowave. I started at 2 minutes and then kept on adding a minute until the water boiled. (boiled over! Put your jars on a pie try or something similar in case of water boiling over)

The most helpful piece of instruction was to stop the cooking went the water went, mostly, clear. In my mircowave: 5 -6 minutes.

I left the wool in the jars for awhile to cool down. Once the water was cool it had also gone almost completely clear. Which is pretty cool.

Meanwhile my kitchen smelled like wet sheep and vinegar - kinda like a barn. Odd but kinda comforting.

Clear water: Done! 

Once the wool had completely cooled, I rinsed it off, (no dye came out and squeezed out the excess water. I am SO pleased with the result!

Finished Wool 

 Perfect! 

Since the first batch turned out so well I decided to make 3 more colours: Pink, Purple and Brown. 

For the pink I used a few drops of red, just to keep it lighter. I mixed red and blue for the purple and mixed yellow, blue, green and read for the brown. (I used A LOT of food colouring)

Batch 2 - pink, purple and brown - ready to be dyed

 I followed the same procedure and had the same awesome results.

In the end, the wool was dyed, but hadn't picked up all the colour, so with just a little bit of dye left I made two more colours. Which also turned out very pretty. (see end of post for all the colours) 

Pink in the back, brown bottom left, purple on the right.
Still a little dye left in the jar

Last two colours, very muted. 

All the colours hanging out to dry.
Pink, blue, red, green, purple, left over purple, brown, left over brown. 

Close up of purple and brown and their muted seconds

Knitted Minecraft Creeper

This is a minecraft creeper. They are one of the 'mob' bad guys in the game. My son asked me to make him one so I did. A found a few crochet patterns on line, but no knitting one's, but since creepers are just blocks, I knew it wouldn't be to hard.

I found some great yarn - Bernat Super Value in 'Lush' which is just about the exact colour of a creeper. It's Medium 4 ply worsted weight. The Super Value Skeins are BIG - 386 meters. I used full one and about 1/3rd of a second. So in the end I used what we estimate to be 500 meters (or half a kilometer) of yarn. WOW!

I used size 6 / 4mm needles - making the stitches tight, I didn't want a lot of stretch.

The Head

Cast on 30 stitches and use stockinette stitch. 

Knit 37 rows making a 6 inch x 6 inch square. 

This sizing was pretty arbitrary.

You could make this any size you wanted. Just make use you keep your scale correct: (The body is approx 3 times the size of the head.)

Make 5 in solid green. Make 1 with a face.

I honestly can't tell you what I did to make the face, other than switching out the green for black. I did draw out a stitch pattern to get the features, but I made it up as I went. I'm sure there's great video out there that teach the proper technique for changing colours, but I haven't learned that yet. 

Sew 5 of the squares together to make a box shape. Leave one piece to sew on later.

Watch the top and bottom of the pieces so that all stitches face the same direction on the cube.

I purchased foam sheets from the craft store so the head and body could be soft but hold to the cube forms. I measured the foam pieces slightly larger than the knit pieces.

Making them 6.5 inches X 6.5 inches, for a snug fit.

 Before stuffing the foam - I discovered the head made a darn nice hat. 

 I cut pieces of foam to the right size and pressed them into the box until it was full. Then Sewed the last piece on to complete the cube.

The Body

Front/ Back: Cast on 30 stitches and using stockinette stitch knit 75 rows. 

2 Sides: Cast on 25 stitches and using stockinette stitch knit 75 rows. 

Bottom: Cast on 30 stitches and using stockinette stitch knit (approx) 27 rows

The sides of the creeper will be just a little bit narrower that the front/back. 

I only 5 pieces for the body of the creeper. I knew that I would be sewing the "Neck" to the head so there was no need to make a full knitted piece. 

I sewed all the pieces together to make a box shape and then measured and cut the foam pieces to fill the rectangle. 

For the "top/ or neck" I created a lattice of yarn pulling it tight as a went, making a snug fit around the foam. 

Here's the creeper head and body together. 

The above photo shows the 'neck' which is completely hidden by the head. 

On to - The Feet! 

Creepers have 4 feet. That's 24 separate pieces for the feet alone! 

I started by making the sides: 

Cast on 15 stitches. Knit in stockinette stitch 27 rows. 

Make 16  <---- yes, make 16 of them. 

After making the sides, I cut the foam and sewed them up around the foam leaving the top and the bottoms undone. I wanted to make the top and bottom a little bit smaller - to create a snug fit. So once I had this part done I could figure out the size for the top and bottom: 

the top and bottom of the feet: 

Cast on 12 stitches and knit in Stockinette stitch 24 rows. 

This created a snug fit around the foam when I sewed them up. 

Then it was just a matter of sewing the feet to the body. I sewed them along the seams, so they would 'dangle'. (See last photos) 

Finished Creeper, with tiny model used to make the design. 

YAH! He's done! 

Maybe I can balance him on my head!