Needle felting

Several members of our local ASG started a felting group to learn to incorporate needle felting into sewing projects. Several of us purchased the Babylock Embelllisher and some members have acquired the new Janome Xpressions machine. We had an initial meeting in November to discuss ideas and projects and what we want the group to do and be.

We had our next meeting earlier this month and decided to meet every two months. Each member of the group would be the leader/teacher for that month. I got March!!! I am still in the infant/crawling stage, while some others are off and running a marathon. Everyone of us are at various skill levels so this will be tedious I am sure for some and a great learning experience for us others (me).

I decided to have each member work on learning to make shapes each week in order to learn more about the machine, how to control the feling to make the shape and then I hope to conclude with everyone making some sort of project. I am encouraging members to take photos of their practice for the week and post on our group page.

This evening I spent time felting rectangles and squares on wool felt fabric. This was the first lesson, to felt the above shapes using yarn, roving or whatever one wanted to do. I took some photos and will be posting on our group. I did fairly well. I need to learn to control, felt and shape. There are more and more books coming out on the subject but it is quite different from cutting out patterns, sewing, fitting, basting and developing a complete and wearable item.