Nature Friends

New dolls have been added to my Amanda May Shop this evening.

This one is my new favorite:



He comes from the forest, obviously, and is clearly descended from royalty (notice the crown and decorated staff). I think he is ready for an adventure...

And a Boy!

My very first needle felted boy doll is dressed and ready to meet the world! I think he is very sweet, he has a pensive face but looks like he could kick a soccer ball with the best of them!


This was also my first attempt at a wire armature, which turned out to be a bit of a hassle. Three felting needles were broken, effectively halting my needle felting evenings until the emergency refill pack arrived from Ewetopia. It is good to have friends with connections.

My favorite part of this little man are his ears.



I am tempted to go back and add ears to all the other dolls I have around.

Visit my shop for more pictures!

Summer Sweetheart

Now available in my shop! She is not a Lenci, I still have some practicing to do to get to that level, but she is very sweet. If I do say so myself! I think she can be a wonderful dollhouse inhabitant, or a sweet little friend to stick in your pocket. Or she can decorate a desk or nature table, as others of her compatriots now do!!

I have been having some dilemmas on the pricing front. If I priced these dolls so that my time was actually worth, well, something, they would be way to expensive for anyone to buy. Conundrum. I am working on ways to cut down on production time while keeping to my meticulous standards of quality, we will have to see how that works out.

The part of making these dolls that takes up the time is felting the body. It takes an astonishing amount of wool to make each one, and compacting it in layers and layers is time consuming. The really fun part is when the basic body shape is together, and I can start to individualize it. Extra layers are added on to make bumps and curves, the legs must be rounded out and the tummy plumped up. Then the face, for sure the most fun part. It is amazing how the dolls come to life once they have eyes. Actually, I usually try to leave the eyes until the very end, it is hard to stab the needle into it when it has eyes. (Just to clarify, for those of you who are unfamiliar with needle felting, it is a process in which barbed needles - often recycled from industrial felting machines - are poked and jabbed at the wool, causing it to felt).

Two of my dolls have so far headed off to new homes. I know that this one is looking forward to traveling too!

Wool and what I made

I got these exciting bags in the mail a few days ago from Ewetopia Fiber Shop. Specially ordered for doll felting, I got a yellow mix for hair, a peachy skin color, a nice mix of reds, and some browns and grays. I was looking forward to these new colors, because gray is just not great for skin, although the little doll I made is pretty durned cute, if I do say so myself!



I think the little witchy hat makes the gray skin work ok.

Who would have thought?

This unprepossessing little piece of knitting was my final effort in a long felting saga.

The story began in Virginia, where I read a magazine article about turning old wool sweaters into purses. What an exciting idea! So over the holidays I made a trip to a local thrift store and found a lovely green, 100% wool sweater, took it home, and tossed it in the washer, with plenty of soap and the water set to hot. Twenty minutes or so later, and the cycle was over. Imagine my surprise on lifting from the machine, not a nicely shrunken piece of felt, but a lovely green sweater whose only change was to be, perhaps, a bit cleaner.

Another attempt was made, adding a larger quantity of soap and extra items to increase the agitation, and the sweater still did not felt. Ok, I thought, this must be a case of the wool having some sort of felt-resistant coating. Not unheard of in commercial wool. So I took a piece of knitting, done by my mother, and threw that in. Still no luck. I tried a handknit, homespun wool sweater. Again no felt. That's when the above pictured knitting took place. Not exactly sure what my logic was, but I needed another choice and it just seemed right. This also did not felt. I was thouroughly confused. Isn't it the second most common laundry disaster, after turning the whites pink, to felt the woolens? And all I was left with was a pile of wet wool. So I tossed everything into the dryer. And here the story takes a turn for the better: an hour later, everything except my original green thrifted sweater was nicely felted. The only piece I ended up using was my little knitted rectangle, which became a sweet little bag for a friend's Christmas gift, with the addition of a canvas handle and a needle-felted decoration.

I still want to try this sweater-to-bag plan, but I'm just not sure when I'll find the time. Turns out felting is a tougher process than I had realized!