Contents
Dry felting from wool: making toys
We make a New Year’s gift for the New Year 2011 of the Rabbit (or Hare) with our own hands. We master the basics of dry felting (felting) to make a cute bunny. It can become a bright present – a brooch, magnet or Christmas tree decoration.
wool for felting (not spun) in white, gray and pink colors;
needles for felting No. 36, No. 40;
beads, buttons for eyes or ready-made eyes;
sponge, foam rubber or brush-mat for felting;
tape, glue for the peephole, scissors;
safety pin or brooch clasp, magnet;
various accessories for decorating a bunny.
Since the coming 2011, according to the Chinese calendar, is considered the year of the white Rabbit (Hare or Cat), our woolen bunny will be white.
Project author: , artist.
1. Making sketches of all the details
If you have never studied dry felting, it is better to start with a pattern – for a better representation of the dimensions and the final result, for the first time we advise you to sketch all the details: body, head, ears, legs. If you are confident in yourself, you can wag details by eye. Moreover, with dry felted wool you can always add or even more respect, therefore, small inaccuracies in the form of our New Year’s bunny will be easy to tweak.
We make all parts of the body separately, constantly checking the sketch. Let’s start, for example, with the ear: take a small ball of wool (you can preliminarily estimate the final density of the workpiece by tightly squeezing the ball in your fist). Putting it on the brush (to save your fingers from piercing with a needle), we begin to stick a needle (or several at once – for speed). As the compaction proceeds, we evenly rotate our lump, giving it an elongated shape. The longer the process lasts, the denser and harder the lump will become. At first, we roll on both sides, when the lump is compacted and will already have a clearer shape, we carefully pass the needle along the front side without piercing it through.
.
3. Felting the rest of the details
In the same way, according to the sketch, we make a second ear, a round head, a torso and four legs. Leave a small piece at the base of the ears and paws felted wool (it will come in handy for joining parts).
In order for our hare became more realistic, we paint the ears with the help of thin strands of pink and gray wool (they must be carefully rolled on the front side of the workpiece). In the same way, you can do our new year hare convex belly.
5. We process the edges of the parts
Do not forget about the edges, they also need to be sealed. We clamp every detail of our bunnies between the index and thumb and very carefully pass the needle along the edge so as not to hurt your fingers.
We take the blank of the body and, “sticking” to the remaining non-felted fur with a thinner needle, we try to symmetrically fix the legs of our a hare… We do the same operation, rolling the ears to the head. Head to body can be either sewn for strength or welded.
Now we make out the face of our a hare: glue the eyes (instead of them, you can sew on small buttons or beads). The spout can be rolled, sewn on a bead, or drawn with an outline for textiles. For this we take a very small thin strand of fur and begin to roll on the muzzle bunny.
It remains to decorate our New Year’s bunny… We treated our hare woolen carrot and tied a ribbon bow around his neck. But you can get creative: dress up hare, decorate it with a knitted flower or an interesting button …
When our new year bunny will be completely ready, we sew a pin or a brooch clasp (or a magnet to attach the craft to the refrigerator). To prevent the threads from being visible, they can be carefully folded over.
Before the very beginning of the felting process, squeeze a ball of wool in your hand as tightly as possible – it will take less time to achieve the desired density.
Try to stick the needle in and out at the same angle, otherwise it is very easy to break it.
Take care of your fingers!
It is better to use needles of two sizes – for coarse and finer work.
The brooch pin can be welded on without using thread.
All small details (paws, ears) can not be rolled up, but sewn with threads, then there is no need to leave the unwashed ends. But it is necessary to sew on imperceptibly and tightly.
If a thread mark remains visible, a tiny piece of wool can be used to correct the error.