Read Time:1 Minute, 56 Second
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.
Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
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Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
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