how to make a solid wool felted stone

Work life has been very busy lately. To make the most of my art time, I've been looking at ways to streamline my process a bit. I've been wanting to do a hanging piece with my stones, without having the weight of actual stones. I've made solid wool stones before by needle-felting them firmly and then wet-felting them, but it takes time that I just don't have right now.  This method allows me to make a batch of stones at a time with much less effort.

Want to give it a try?

You'll need:

wool roving/batting that will felt

felted wool sweater

a knee-high stocking or a leg from pantyhose

scissors

washing machine

felting needle (optional but helpful)

plastic bag

dish soap

If you've followed my tutorial for felted stones, this will be pretty self-explanatory. We'll substitute felted sweater for the stone, following the same steps, but allowing the washing machine to do the felt work for us.

From the wool sweater, cut a basic stone shape. You'll want to cut one larger piece for the center, widest, part of the stone and two smaller pieces, one for the top and one for the bottom. No need to get exact here as the felting will alter the shape and make it nicely rounded.

Next you'll lay out a little mat of roving for your stone slightly wider and about 3 times longer than your stone. Lay a thin layer out with the fibers running horizontally, and a second layer with the fibers running vertically. This will encourage the fibers to tangle together more easily around your "stone". Roll the wool "stone" up in the fiber, tucking the sides in and making a neat little package.

Using your felting needle, tack the edges and ends in place. No need to needle the whole surface, just get it to stay put long enough to get to the next step.

Now repeat those steps until you have a pile of little wool stones-to-be, and grab your stocking.

If the stocking you're using has a seam in the toe, turn it inside out. I've found that the seam will make an indent in the stone, which is fixable, but easily avoidable.

Now slide your first stone down into the toe of the stocking and tie a knot right above it.

Keep adding stones and tying between each one until the stocking is filled. Resist the urge to whack people with your stocking of stones. The kids will see and follow suit. (I make the mistakes so you don't have to)

Now, if you want to make lots and lots of stones this way you can save up all your stone-filled stockings until you have a washer load full. If you want to make just a few, or if you are impatient, toss that stocking in with a load of jeans and let 'er go. I ran these for one cycle, but if you see they're not felting well enough, toss them in another load and let them go again.

They're pretty gnarly looking when they're done.

Get out your scissors and set them free. Cut above the knot and peel the stocking off of your stone.

Whoa. The surface is pretty unruly, but that's okay, we can fix the surface. We're more concerned about the center being pretty well felted. That's the step that takes time if you were to do them by hand. These are well-felted so we'll just address that surface fuzz.

Take your fuzzy stone to the sink and wet the surface with a little warm water and a drop of soap. Rub the stone using the plastic bag for about 30 seconds. Rinse off the stone and set it aside to dry.

See? So much better.

In a relatively short amount of time and with minimal felting effort you can have a whole pile of solid wool stones that you can use in your projects.

A few things to keep in mind:

Choose a wool center that won't bleed color, or choose a color that will work with your design if it does bleed. Grey is a safe choice, red might not be.

Some plastic bags are printed with ink that will transfer once wet. Turn your plastic bag inside out and avoid using the printed area.

After you rinse your stone, just set it down and let it dry. You can trim off any stray fuzzies with small scissors once it's dry.

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Soon...well, soonish...I'll show you what I did with mine.

If you try this out I'd love to see what you're doing with them. Drop me a line or leave a comment and share!

If you find this, or one of my other tutorials, helpful and would like to make a monetary contribution to help me keep wool in my basket and ideas flowing, I'd be so grateful.  By clicking the "Buy Now" button below you can choose your own price for the tutorial.  It's completely optional, but oh so appreciated.

tutorials

As you might know, I offer a few tutorials here on my blog.  I love encouraging people to explore crafting with nature and enjoy sharing my knowledge.

With the holidays coming up, now is a great time to make a few poinsettia brooches, tiny birch bark canoes or mushrooms from  natural materials for the tree.  Maybe a few felted stones to keep your hands busy?

I offer each of these for free and hope they are fun and helpful.  What you'll notice that's new though, is a "Buy Now" button on each of my tutorials with this statement:

"If you find this, or one of my other tutorials, helpful and would like to make a monetary contribution to help me keep wool in my basket and ideas flowing, I'd be so grateful.  By clicking the "Buy Now" button below you can choose your own price for the tutorial.  It's completely optional, but oh so appreciated."

That pretty well sums it up.  My tutorials will continue to be free, but they do take time and effort to develop and write.  I share tips to help you avoid mistakes that I've already made through trial and inevitable error.  If you're able to, and would like to, contribute, it would mean a few more locks of wool in my basket so I can keep exploring and sharing.

Thank you.

x. Lisa

free apple brooch tutorial - appreciate those teachers

Lark is offering my tutorial for making this sweet apple brooch FREE on their site in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.  Stop on by and download the pdf tutorial.  It's easy enough for older kids to work up with just a little help and makes a nice gift for teachers and apple farmers alike.  This is one of the projects in the book Heart-Felt: Holidays, a sweet little book I'm thrilled to have been part of.

and because this subject always makes me a little soap-boxy...

On the subject of teachers...it's my wish that someday we would appreciate and compensate our teachers in the way we do our professional athletes.  It seems so backwards to me that we pay millions of dollars, millions!!, to those undeniably talented men and women who excel at their sport, to entertain us while the people who you know, only educate our future generations... are paid modestly (in most cases).

Imagine for a moment the possibilities our world could realize if education were king and entertainment was well, entertainment.  Imagine.

Thank you, teachers for all you do!

pocketed placemat tutorial

If you find this, or one of my other tutorials, helpful and would like to make a monetary contribution to help me keep wool in my basket and ideas flowing, I'd be so grateful.  By clicking the "Buy Now" button below you can choose your own price for the tutorial.  It's completely optional, but oh so appreciated.

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It has been a while since I've spent time crafting for myself.  I decided to change that this week and do something with the canvas dropcloth I've been tripping over in my workshop.  I love the almost linen-like look of the untreated canvas and decided to use it on my tabletop.  A few cuts, a few stitches, and some collaboration with my little ones and I had myself some placemats.

Placemats with cute little pockets!

They were incredibly easy to make and here's a little how-to if you'd like to give them a go yourself.

Materials

canvas

sewing machine threaded with your choice of thread color

paint - acrylic or fabric paint

leaves

waxed paper

You'll need to cut two pieces of canvas for each placemat.  Mine are 11" x 15" which fit my plates and silverware nicely.  When determining the size I laid out my dish and the silverware pocket to check for a proper fit.  You'll want to adjust the size to fit your own dishes as needed. 

Cut a piece of canvas roughly 3" x 4" to act as a pocket on your placemat.

Enlist the help of children to do botanical prints on your pocket pieces.  If you don't have any children laying around, then go on and do it yourself.  Instructions for making nature prints are here.

After your leaf prints are completely dry you'll want to sew across the top of each one to stop the fabric from fraying too far.

Pin the pocket to the front of your placemat and sew down the side, across the bottom, and back up the third side.  Be sure to back stitch at the beginning and end so your pocket holds securely.

After your pocket is sewn on, pin the top layer of your placemat to the bottom layer.  I'm going for a simple look with an intentional fray around the outside.  None of that turning inside-out fanciness for me today.

Sew the two layers of placemat together, keeping the stitches 1/4" from the outer edge.

Fray the edges of the placemat and the pocket by removing the threads running parallel to your stitches.  Be careful not to tug the stitches out in the process.

Give your placemat a good shake or a once-over with a lint brush and there you have it!

Ready to serve.

My kids think the little pockets are super cool and the younger ones were eager to set the table.

Eager.

To set the table.

That alone makes this project totally worth it for me.

If you're so inclined you could also treat these to make them more stain-resistent.

I think these would be cute made from denim too, maybe with pockets made of bandana material or leather?  Or made of felt perhaps?  Or recycle a thrift-store raincoat and make placemats that can withstand a storm of peas and carrots, that would be cool.

If you try it, I hope you'll share the results.  I'd love to see where your creativity takes this.