The Last Gift

Well, the second to last, I guess.  I did order one more thing with the rest of the money my older brother's family sent me, so technically that will be the last gift.  It's supposed to get here tomorrow, and I'll tell you all about it then.

But the last one I'm going to tell you about today is this:

It's a needle felting kit from my sister's family!  I was very excited to get this one, because I'd planned on taking a needle felting class at Fiber Fun In The 'Sip last year.  That one was cancelled because of the pandemic, and the one this year ... I guess they cancelled it because of the pandemic, as well, even though what few restrictions we had (mostly capacity limitations) were completely lifted in March. 

I hope they have one next year.  I miss hanging out with Amy, and Christi, and Leann.  And other knitters and spending too much money, and staying in a hotel, and just all of it. 

But I digress...I seem to do that a lot, don't I?

What was I talking about?  Oh yes, my needle felting kit.  This was my gift from my sister's family, and it's got everything I need to get started.  It's got different colors of wool, different sizes of needles, finger protectors, felting templates...all the tools you need to do needle felting.  It's even got little eyes for when you want to make things with faces, and key ring parts and stuff.  The only thing it didn't have was instructions. 

But no matter.  There are plenty of instructional videos on YouTube to teach me all I need to know.   One of the ones I've been looking at is Felts By Philippa.  She's got all sorts of tutorials and beginner videos.  Yes, there is a learning curve, but fortunately, I've got lots and lots of fiber, some of it already dyed, from when I went through my spinning phase.  

I dug it all out of the closet to practice with, and found myself to be a little hesitant to use it.  I kept thinking, "But what if I decide I want to spin all this up later on?" Then I told myself, "You've had this fiber for at least 10 years, and have never done anything with it.  Use it to felt with.  If you want to get back into spinning, you still have all the stuff Suzie sent you." And that's exactly what I did.   I pulled off a little blob of yellow, and made a ...blob. 

The next thing I tried to make was a tree, but it didn't turn out so well.  Learning curve and all...

Even though my kit came with these little templates, 

one of the videos I watched suggested using cookie cutters as templates as well.  I got into my boxes of cookie cutters I'd had stored in my cabinet for forever, and dug these out:  

and I picked up a few more on clearance when I went into town.  

I was hoping to find some non Christmassy cookie cutters, but it looks like I'm going to have to either order some, or go to a kitchen specialty store.  There used to be one in Batesville, but I'm pretty sure they've closed.  The last time I went up there, I drove by that outlet mall, and there was nothing left in it.  I mean, nothing.  

In the meantime, I used one of my cookie cutters to make this tree.  I think it looks pretty good. 

I tidied it up a bit more, and what is a Christmas tree without a star?  

I'm wanting to figure out how to put little decorations on it, and maybe make the trunk over-laid with brown fiber.  

Since then, I've just been going to town making little felted things.

One day, I hope to work up to making the little animals I see other felters make.  I think I'm going to start collecting Jesse's fur when I brush him and make a little felted Jesse.  

That ought to be cute, eh?