Needle Little Break from Knitting?

By Kitty Lapin Agile on June 1, 2014 • ( 2 )

I’ve been knitting many hats for the hospital she helps support in South Africa. However, my fingers finally began to complain and needed a break. My younger daughter does needle art, where you take wool roving and basically form it into shapes just using a needle. There is no glue or sewing involved. It’s simply punching with a needle until the desired shape is formed.

My daughter does excellent needle felted animals, just free handed. I purchased a kit with a small rubber mold to help, and my needle punch rabbit looked horrible. I was about to give it all up, and look for another craft to give my fingers a break from knitting, when my daughter suggested I just try winging it.

A black bear and a wombat, or perhaps Toto from the Wizard of Oz

I have friends visiting from the UK, and know they like wombats. I was going to try a freehand wombat. What I ended up with looks a bit like Toto from the Wizard of Oz, but for a first try it’s way better than the kit I had tried to use. Then I made a black bear, as my friends also were rather sad they had not seen a REAL bear during their visit.

I need to work on making a book.

Things became really quite fun when I began to think of needle animals to make as gifts for friends. One of my friend Ellie had sent me supplies for the needle crafting. Since she is a retiring librarian, I made her a book reading rabbit. Then I have another friend that likes alligators with wings. Every couple of days I’ve been trying a new animal, learning a bit more about how to shape using the needle.

My friend is kind of “goth” so she’ll like this photograph of the gator with the dead guy.

I’m not as good as my very talented daughter is yet. I also have no plans to make intricate large dragons or large dolls. Those are beautiful and can be seen online.

I’m more interested in small presents for friends, who I hope will manage to keep the wool animals away from their own live pets. My cat found one project I was working on irresistible, and it was quickly turned into a cat toy.

This was supposed to be a Japanese beckoning cat… but because a bow tie beckoning cat.

I found a great online site that sent me some beautiful wool to work with. I’m looking forward to seeing how creative I can become with a these more varigated rovings to work with. I highly recommend “Peace Fleece” which can be ordered from this site. The site has very NICE wool and incredible life like wool sculptures of celebrities. The Peace Fleece is considered to be a “fun wool” for “messing around”.

I really love working with it, and the best part is that the wool arrived quickly and the shipping price was incredibly reasonable. It’s almost unheard of to order something and get shipping and handling for under $4, and have it arrive within days of ordering online.

So if you are a serious needle artist, this site has the best of everything. If you are a “just for fun” type hobbyist, the Peace Fleece is a terrific choice. (hint, anyone wanting to get me a gift to help keep me occupied during recover, and maybe get a lovely little wool animal in the mail in return, this site is the place to go!)

It’s always fun to discover something new to try. It’s way easier than I thought it would be, though I am hoping to purchase some finger guards soon. Those needles are sharp.