Most of the time I'm an illustrator, but I've always loved
making things too. I had a bit of a small toy making business going when I was
in school making soft toy replicas of people's pets and other critters, and now
though I don't often make anything of the toy variety anymore- I already have
too much space being taken up by all my books, I do enjoy sewing and making
home furnishings and other crafty past times, and last year I also had a lot of
fun making one of my monsters too... you may have seen him in my earlier posts.
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Beaky Monster stood on my desk looking out of the window... |
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Beaky Monster in production... no head! but no eyes yet either so it's not too horrific. |
I made Beaky Monster using a craft known as 'needle
felting'. Beaky Monster is my very first needle felted
creation and though it is often painful (I lost count of how many times I
stabbed myself in the finger with the little barbed needles) it is strangely
addictive and stress relieving too- when it's going the way you want at least,
haha.
You basically sculpt tufts of dyed woollen fibres into shape
by repeatedly stabbing it with an assortment of vicious little barbed needles
which serve to mesh the fibres together and make the woollen lumps increasingly
dense and firm.
Check out Gretel Parker's website - http://www.gretelparker.com/
to see some superb needle felting, and the little felt dogs! she also run's needle felting classes too...
Great work, thanks for the mention!
ReplyDeleteThanks! :)
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