Embroidery on Needle Felting

I recently had another of those “What if” moments.  I was adding a bead to a heart ornament and realized that the ornament looked very plain even with the heart.  So I wondered how it would look with a little running stitch of embroidery around the edge.  And I liked it. 

Heart Ornament with embellishments

So that led me to adding embroidery on other felted items just to add a little embellishment to them.  

Such as using french knots for the eyes of some dolphin ornaments. 

French knot eyes on dolphin

Or adding a little sparkle to an ornament with metallic thread.

Sparkle on Red needle Felted Ball

How about creating the laces on what will be a football ornament. 

Laces on a football

When you do embroidery on fabric you have the knots and stitches on the back side of the fabric.  But with needle felting you don’t have that because you can felt over the knots and stitches.

Back of the football 

Just take a little roving and cover the back side and felt it in and the knots are gone.  Just a little advice: don't felt too deep or the needle might come through the embroidery and ruin your stitches. 

Felted the knots away

So the next time you are needle felting something, add a little interest to your piece and do some embroidery.

©2017  Cheryl Fillion

A Needle Felted Pumpkin

As I mentioned in last week’s blog I love pumpkins: real pumpkins, fabric pumpkins, yarn pumpkins.  Lately I have been doing needle felted pumpkins.  They are easy, fun and make great hostess gifts if you are invited somewhere for Thanksgiving.

When I am doing a 3 dimensional item, I will use a ‘core’ batting to form the shape of the item and then add the colored roving or batting on the outside.  Core batting can be a cleaned undyed wool or even a polyester batting (just like you would use to stuff a pillow) .  You don’t want to us your colorful batting or roving on the inside of the figure where it can’t be seen. 

core batting

Once you have the core batting, start felting it into the shape you want.  If you use a polyester batting you may have to use more than the wool batting and may have to felt longer to get the shape you want.  That’s OK because in most cases the polyester batting is cheaper.

Core batting in its shape

When you have the size and shape you want for your pumpkin, start felting in the colored batting.  The batting I am using in the picture is called a sculptured batting so it has bumps and nobs of wool that wasn’t combed smooth.  I like the look of it for the pumpkin.  Not all pumpkins are smooth in its shell.  Keep adding the colored roving or batting until your core sculpture is covered.

roving on core batting shape

Covered core shape

    

Once you have your shaped covered with the colored batting, pick one side and over felt it.  That means keep needle felting the area until it is flat so you have a base to set it on. You don’t want your pumpkin rolling around.

Needle felt flat base

One the opposite side of that base, needle felt a small indentation.  This will be where your stem will go.

Create area for stem

 Now take some green batting; you don’t need much and started felting a stem . I usually try to make it a tiny cigar shape.  Use whatever colored green you would like as your stem.  I like the look of a dark green although an olive green would look just as nice.

Felting the stem

 Once you have the size and shape of your stem, needle felt it into the pumpkin.  Place the stem in the indentation and felt through the stem at the base and into the pumpkin.  Make sure you put your needle all the way through to the pumpkin or the stem won’t attach.  

Pumpkin with stem

     

Now most pumpkins have indentations along the outside.  To create those, start needling in a line from the stem to the base and keep needling until you see the indentation form.  Do the same thing all around the pumpkin. I usually felt so there are eight indentations.  But you do what you would like (including no indentations.)

Felting indentations

  Happy Pumpkin Season, everyone.

©2017  Cheryl Fillion

I Love Pumpkins

I think my favorite fall icon/symbol/item is the pumpkin.  My Thanksgiving table always has a pumpkin pie.  I roast the pumpkin seeds from my Jack O’Lanterns.  

Roasted pumpkin seeds - Yum

And even though there are no children in my household, Halloween wouldn’t be Halloween without a carved pumpkin.

Smilely the Pumpkin

And of course I make lots of pumpkin quilts, coasters, needle felted ones.  If it has a pumpkin on it, I am probably going to try and make it.

Last year I had a blog post entitled Spool Knitted Pumpkin  which showed how to make a spool knitted pumpkin coaster.  Check it out if you like to spool knit.  And I bet crocheters could figure out how to make something similar. 

Pumpkin coaster

I have also used pumpkins with the kids crafts I do at the farmers market.  I traced a pumpkin cookie cutter onto card stock and let the kids decorate it with orange pompoms.  (Check out the blog post: Cookie Cutters Aren’t Just For Cookies )    

Pompom Pumpkin

Lately I have been making needle felted pumpkins.  Using cookie cutters as a form, I have made some ornaments for Halloween and Thanksgiving. How to do this is in Needle Felting in a Cookie Cutter.  Just switch out a pumpkin cookie cutter for the bunny. 

Felted Pumpkin with Cookie Cutter

Next week I will have a tutorial on how to make a 3 dimensional needle felted pumpkins so check back here then and we will have some pumpkiny fun. See you then.

© 2017 Cheryl Fillion

Fabric Pumpkins