|
|
|
|
|
As a knitter, I’ve been familiar with the concept of felting for years. It’s a simple concept that most people have learned the hard way: if you throw a wool sweater in the wash, add water and friction, and the strands of yarn in your sweater will bond together, leaving you with a solid fabric (and a teeny-tiny sweater). Knitters, however, use the same felting process for good—to make heavy felted hats and bags.
In Making Felted Friends, designer Sue Pearl uses natural wool fibers (called “roving”), which she shapes and bonds together to create 25 brightly-colored felted projects. From simple snakes to two-legged birds to four-legged puppies, eight-legged spiders, and more, the designs are absolutely adorable—and ingenious. Just a glance at the book’s cover will make you want to create a bird—or a monkey…or a mouse—of your own.
Since felt is a relatively new trend in crafting (though, as Pearl points out, it’s been around for over 8,000 years)—and since the process is pretty involved—Pearl begins by explaining the procedures and techniques in great detail. She discusses the materials and equipment needed before moving into the basics of making various kinds of felt—showing each step using full-color pictures.
Pearl then moves into the designs, starting with basic flat panels and breaking the rest of the projects up into categories by their number of legs. For each category, she begins by explaining how to make the basic skeletons—using pipe cleaners as well as small pieces of roving and felt. She then goes into each project, carefully explaining (and showing) each little detail and each embellishment.
If you’ve never worked with felt before, Making Felted Friends is a great place to start. In fact, it’s the next best thing to signing up for a hands-on class at a craft store—because Pearl walks you through every single step with both words and pictures. Sure, it’s a pretty involved process—and it requires quite a bit of equipment—but Pearl makes it all look easy. And it doesn’t hurt that her designs are so irresistibly cute. They’re so colorful and playful and wonderfully creative that you’ll want to make one of each.
|
|
|
|
