Needle felting lesson

Since finishing Lalupe (who's now happily sharing a windowsill with her older brother Dagobert), not a lot has happened on the dry felting frontier.
Until, two weeks ago, my friend from Brussels asked me for an introduction. I showed her some techniques (round, flat and long thin shapes, face shaping, basic eyes) and invented a new one for tiny rattie paws.

Lalupe

My most time-consuming critter so far is Lalupe, the little dragon.

I used the brown country sheep roving as core material. Normally I stick to my starter kit selection of merino for the top layer, but I had green "felting yarn" and thought I'd give it a try.

Learned:

- embellishing with contrasting fibre

Feltertinger

During the creation of this critter it quickly became clear that what I wanted it to become and what it wanted to be were two different things.

The Bavarian and Austrian tradition of "funny" taxidermy came to mind as I was finishing off what shall henceforth be known as:

The Feltertinger

Learned:

- eye lids

Mamegoma style

Mamegoma are incredibly cute baby seals in different colour schemes:

This is my take on the idea:

Learned:

- covering a "country sheep" raw form with merino

- tiny detail for mouth

McCrab

I think I made something cute yesterday evening and this evening.

Learned:
- including eyes
- small shapes
- smoother surface
- working with merino only
- "go with the flow" of the fibre in top layers

Question:
Why do my thickest felting needles break more easily than the thin ones?

Practizing, practizing

First felting needle broke. Not a pleasant experience to have 2cm of barbed pointy metal flying past my ear...
So this is Bowler, the Squid, named after his bowler hat.

Practized:
tube shapes
round flap
attaching shapes

Bunneh needs to get out of Dodge

- a predator has arrived: Barney Owl

Experimented with:
- smaller shapes
- flaps
- several colours

Learned:
brown country sheep carding should be reserved for filler duties

Concept doodle (3)

As I explained to a friend the other day, the inhabitants of my village have the pet name "Krotnpracker" - toad squishers. In our area, bricks were manufactured, and oftentimes toads (or frogs, the common language isn't that precise) were squished in the process. Nowadays, toads are my town's mascots.

Concept doodle (2)

Funny how it ended up resembling one of my childhood heroes:

Got it!

Three gruelling hours after finding a note in my mailbox saying that my parcel had been deposited with a neighbour, I finally was able to pick it up!
My meervilt! starters kit with felting wool, needles and a felting sponge!
First project - a bunneh!
Or an exclamation mark!

Or a trip to the ER if I manage to pierce my thumbnail with one of those needles.

Come to think of it, I've never been to an ER.

Guess it's one of those "things to do before you die". Literally, in most cases.

---

Another 2 hours have passed.

I have to say, there's something therapeutic about the sound the needles make when stabbing a bunneh...

Hootie and the -

Concept for a possible needle felt project.

Also, how I feel today.

Slippery Slopes

I knew I was doomed when my friend Karin of Keuns & Bears told me to consider dry (or needle) felting a facial feature for an amigurumi.
Looking into the technique I found this:

@ Pinterest

and now I'm kind of tempted to buy a few supplies and start stabbing things