Following our introduction to 3-D needle felting in March we
decided to continue with that theme and do some form of flat felting in April.
For those of you who are not aware, (and I was one of them) there is a machine,
similar to a sewing machine, called an Embellishing Machine (Needle Felting
Machine,) that makes life a whole lot easier to do needle felting over a
large area. Many companies make them and the main difference between models
seems to be the number of needles they use – some have 5 needles and others
have 12. They use no thread, have no bobbin and have about the same amount of
space inside the arm of machine. You can see in this picture of Jan at the
machine what it looks like.
Diane has a HuskyStar by Husqvarna Viking and she
brought hers along to FOG on Tuesday for us to try. After having used it I
can’t imagine doing this by hand, even as small as a piece of felt.
Using a backing piece of felt or other fabric, you design
your piece by lying down and overlapping almost any items that you can think of
– as long as the needles can penetrate the item. We used yarns, paper napkins,
silk flower petals, wool roving, thread waste, ribbon, lace and all types of
fabrics. Once your design is completed you overlay the entire piece with
organza, tulle, netting – something that you can still see your items through,
but will enhance the piece. We used an article by Rebekah Meier from an
issue of Cloth Paper Scissors Magazine as a general guideline.
Then you take it to the machine and start to move the piece
around under the needles that are moving up and down quite quickly. For those
of you who free motion quilt, the process is about the same. We found that with
some of the overlays that it was helpful to lay down wisps of wool roving to
help the needles penetrate and hold all the layers together.
Now that our base pieces are completed we will spend time
doing some hand stitching and embellishing with thread, beads, sequins and
other items. As our pieces are completed we'll post them on the blog.