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    Quick & Clever Felting
    Quick & Clever Felting
    Quick & Clever Felting
    Ebook279 pages

    Quick & Clever Felting

    By Ellen Kharade

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A guide to this rewarding and versatile textile art, filled with creative ideas you can do in less than a day.

    Discover felting the quick and clever way with these fun and fabulous projects!
    •Essential easy-to-follow techniques include needle felting, wet felting, fulling, and using ready-made felt
    •Variation ideas show just how easy it is to adapt the designs to suit your own style
    •Colorful designs range from beautiful jewelry, bags, and cushions to quirky toys and slippers
    •Each irresistible project can be completed in a day—but will make a lasting impression
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateFeb 29, 2008
    ISBN9781446351376
    Quick & Clever Felting

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      Book preview

      Quick & Clever Felting - Ellen Kharade

      Quick & Clever

      Felting

      Ellen Kharade

      A DAVID & CHARLES BOOK

      Copyright © David & Charles Limited 2008

      David & Charles is an F+W Publications Inc. company

      4700 East Galbraith Road

      Cincinnati, OH 45236

      First published in the UK in 2008

      Text and designs copyright © Ellen Kharade 2008

      Photography and illustrations copyright © David & Charles 2008

      Ellen Kharade has asserted her right to be identified as author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

      The designs in this book are copyright and must not be made for resale.

      The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that all the instructions in the book are accurate and safe, and therefore cannot accept liability for any resulting injury, damage or loss to persons or property, however it may arise.

      Names of manufacturers, felt ranges and other products are provided for the information of readers, with no intention to infringe copyright or trademarks.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      ISBN-13: 978-0-7153-2716-6 paperback

      ISBN-10: 0-7153-2716-X paperback

      Printed in China by SNP Leefung Pte Ltd

      for David & Charles

      Brunel House   Newton Abbot   Devon

      Executive Editor Cheryl Brown

      Desk Editor Bethany Dymond

      Art Editor Sarah Underhill

      Designer Mia Farrant

      Project Editors Jo Richardson and Betsy Hosegood

      Production Controller Kelly Smith

      Photographer Kim Sayer and Karl Adamson

      Visit our website at www.davidandcharles.co.uk

      David & Charles books are available from all good bookshops; alternatively, you can contact our Orderline on 0870 9908222 or write to us at FREEPOST EX2 110, D&C Direct, Newton Abbot, TQ12 4ZZ (no stamp required UK only); US customers call 800-289-0963 and Canadian customers call 800-840-5220.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Materials

      General Equipment and Techniques

      Star Notebook Cover

      Glittering Tree Decorations

      Denim and Daisy Elephant

      Favourite Jumper Bag

      Paisley Purse

      Beautiful Bird Mobile

      Rustic Beret

      Springtime Egg Hangings

      Vibrant Document Bag

      Collar Necklace

      A Stockingful of Sparkle

      Charming Egg Cosies

      Mirrored Jewellery Boxes

      Tropical Tote Bag

      Fabulous Flower Corsages

      Christening Booties and Rattle

      Quick Appliqué Cushion

      Jester-Style Slippers

      Templates

      Suppliers

      Acknowledgments

      Index

      Introduction

      Felt fabric is such a beautiful, tactile fabric as well as being so easy to work

      with, and its special qualities can be enjoyed in many different handcrafted forms, from fun toys and eye-catching decorations to stylish accessories for the home and to wear.

      My love of felting began when I decided to recycle a couple of unpromising ready-felted items. The first was a dull wool felt blanket, which I transformed by hand dying it a lovely turquoise colour and appliquéing it with large, brown leaves. The second was my favourite Fair Isle jumper, rendered unwearable through being accidentally shrunk in the washing machine, but in the process metamorphosed into a sturdy, jewel-like fabric, which I cut up and restyled to make a fabulous bag (see pages 34–39 for how to make your own version).

      From then, it was a natural progression to create homemade felt fabric. The process of taking carded fleece and turning it into a dense, usable fabric is like alchemy, and opens up a whole new crafting world. This book offers an exciting exploration into this world, presenting a range of ways in which felt fabric can be created, decorated and applied for quick and clever projects. The simplest method uses ready-made synthetic felt in innovative ways and with interesting embellishments — see the Glittering Tree Decorations, page 26, where cutout motifs are backed with colourful voile and decorated with embroidery and beads, or the Mirrored Jewellery Boxes, page 82, which are covered with vibrantly coloured felt adorned with ornamental mirrors and sequins.

      The technique of needle felting, where carded fleece is repeatedly stabbed with barbed needles to interlock it with the base fabric, can be used to add decorative details, as on the Denim and Daisy Elephant, page 30, or to produce three-dimensional items, either simply worked over polystyrene formers, as for the Springtime Egg Hangings, page 56, or built up in layers, as in the Beautiful Bird Mobile, page 46.

      For really quick results, use ready-made felt and combine it with other fabrics as required. These festive tree decorations are cut from glitter felt (see page 26).

      Did you know that you can needle felt onto other fabrics? Make this pretty, cuddly toy elephant from soft denim to see how it’s done (see page 30).

      Some of the projects exploit the striking colour effects that can be achieved by using dyed felt fabric — see the Vibrant Document Bag, page 62, where the cerise-dyed front flap features a cutout design silhouetted against contrasting-coloured felt. Other projects employ the technique of wet felting, where carded fleece is wetted and rubbed with soap, then rolled in a bamboo blind to harden and shrink the fibres, resulting in a soft, warm and durable fabric. The ingenious applications of this method shown in the book include creating a built-in pattern, as used for the luxurious Christmas stocking, page 72, wet felting around a plastic template to create a seamless three-dimensional shape, as for the christening booties, page 98, and forming beads of wet-felted fleece to make a novel necklace (see page 68) or simply to use as decoration, as in the Jester-Style Slippers, page 112.

      Most of the projects can be easily completed within a day, and many include variations on the basic design to encourage your own creativity. Felting is a little like cooking, and once you become more familiar with its ingredients and methods, you will want to make your own changes and adaptations or discover your own clever tricks and shortcuts. So use these quick and clever felting ideas as a framework for developing your own methods and expertise.

      You can easily needle felt around a polystyrene former to create beautiful felted shapes in no time, like these super eggs (see page 56). Detailing is added with further needle felting or by gluing or pinning on embellishments.

      Wet felting around a plastic or foil template enables you to make seamless forms, like these delightful christening booties (see page 98).

      Materials

      Here is a quick guide to the types of felt you can buy ready to use as well as the raw material you need to make your own homemade felt fabric (see pages 10–18). And for those who are keen to recycle old or discarded items, instructions are given for felting woollens in the washing machine or dying wool felt fabric, such as old blankets, to create totally revamped felt to use in all the different ways explored in this book.

      Ready-made felt

      Manufactured felt is made from synthetic fibres and comes in an array of vivid colours. It is available in small squares (usually 25cm/10in) or off the roll. As with other kinds of felt, it doesn’t fray, but because synthetic felt is thin, it isn’t as hard wearing as hand-felted or handmade wool felt fabric. On the positive side, its thinness means that it is malleable and therefore ideal for curving around boxes, as in the Mirrored Jewellery Boxes, page 82, or soft enough to fold around books to cover them, as in the Star Notebook Cover, page 22. Synthetic felt is also available in 5mm (¼in) thick squares, but not off the roll and the colours can be limited.

      Nepal wool is a hand-felted fabric from India. It is a thick felt with densely packed fibres, which makes it durable and hard wearing. It comes in a variety of colours but in a limited size, in rectangles measuring 30 × 42cm (12 × 16½in), so is therefore only suitable for fairly small projects – see the Vibrant Document Bag, page 62, for example, where it is used as a colourful backdrop for a cutaway design.

      Carded fleece

      This is the raw material used for both needle felting (see page 10) and wet felting (see page 14). You will see carded fleece sold as wool tops, but it is also known as carded wool or combed tops, and is simply referred to as ‘fleece’ in the instructions in the book. You can make felt out of most animal fibres, including llama and angora, and there are many different types

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