A good felting link

One of my good online friends passed this link on:

http://www.harrisville.com/images/curricguidelesson3.pdf

Last week

Last week Springy made a felt jingle. You basically use embroidery thread and attach that to a small bell. Cut up some felt and then thread these on (with a needle). It's a piece of thread with a bell and then up the thread are the bits of felt piled on top of each other and you then tie it off at the other end of the thread and hang it up somewhere. It makes a great Christmas decoration. It was lovely that Springy a) had such good needle control and b) enjoyed doing it.

We've also been making finger pom poms and Springy, as of today, has a collection of four pom poms. She's given them all names and they seem to be a family of a mummy and daddy plus 2 children.

How to make a Finger Pom Pom
You use two fingers together (with a bit of a gap and don't pull the wool too tight otherwise you will cut off the circulation to the fingers) and wrap the wool around these, round and round you go with the wool. When you think you have enough wool then tie a piece around where the middle would be and then slide the pom pom off your fingers. Tie the middle section tight and then cut the ends of the wool (the loops) - et voila you have a pom pom.

Two birthdays and a funny egg

We've got 2 birthday parties this weekend. We made a felted playscape as one gift and for the other we have some Hama beads.

Our little bantam keeps laying strange eggs. She stopped laying eggs when we started the worming food. The "chicken expert" said it is because she is a natural bantam so she won't lay at this time of year but...she is still laying. It's just the eggs are not viable. I am wondering whether it is because the temperature is dropping a lot at night. This morning, walking into the shed felt like walking into a refrigerator room, so I think I am going to pop on the little electric radiator at a very low setting and see if that makes a difference.

This was put up on the list as a useful curriculum resource:

http://www.winterpromise.com/animals_worlds.html

I must admit I really like the sound of some of the sections.

Needle felting - play food

We made 2 items of play food today. Springy loves playing with her basket of pinecones, conkers and the sausage stone (it's a stone that looks exactly like a sausage). I got the needle felting stuff out, blended the regular wool with some yellow merino to make the base for a pizza and topped it with some very yellow wool (melted cheese) , some red wool (using a tiny circular pastry cutter) to make tomatoes and some green wool as the peppers on top. We also made a cake together - again did some fibre blending with some yellow and ordinary wool (the ordinary wool is coarser and better for needle felting and gives the coloured merino some body and grip). I used a circular cookie cutter (the same as for the pizza) to use as a template to needle felt into. Then we built up a layer of 'jam' by using some red and pink blended wool (Springy helped with this), added another layer of cake (ordinary washed fleece with yellow mixed in to give it a sponge cake look) and then some pink icing (again using the ordinary blended with some pastel pink merino). Springy wet-felted (with soap/warm water) a tiny ball to represent a cherry on top. The cake looks delicious and so does the mini pizza - they are perfect as playfood for Springy.

I would like to make vegetables but I seem to better at needle felting using cookie cutters on a 2-d basis and then adding layers (it avoids finger damage - I reckon if Sleeping Beauty was rewritten her father would have removed felting needles from his kingdom!).

Felting and dancing

Springy and I have had a lovely week or so since last posting. We went to a Christmas Fair and Springy went on a pony ride, made a lovely peg doll and a felted necklace. It was a bit commercial (typical school fundraising stuff and some of the prices seemed ridiculous since to me this time of year is about making it special for children) but okay and Springy didn't notice (because she wasn't paying for it!).

We have no more swimming lessons until next year which is a shame because Springy had just got the hang of it (swimming under and on top of the water). However, we had our first French lesson for ages (with the tutor) and Springy really enjoyed that. She was beaming all yesterday with her smile and we had a lovely time today as well. This morning we brought the guineapigs lots of vegetable cuttings which they love and then we did some dancing. We did a waltz (1,2,3). This afternoon (following a good game of tag in the garden) we did some wet felting using cookie cutters. We're making some homemade presents for family members. We stuff the felt in the cutter in a bowl of soapy water (I use baby shampoo) and then poke it to agitate it. We've made some really pretty shapes today, including a snowflake. Springy loves the feel of the warm, soapy water and after her interest wanes from the poking the felt part, her attention turns to the bubbles in the water.

Sewing onto Binka

The other day I bought some Binka with which to make a sewing sampler as part of our home education provision. I've got a bodkin needle and the plan was to borrow my old sewing sampler that I did years ago as the model. However, my mum seems to have lost it somewhere! Oh well... so I'm trying to find out about sewing stitches at the moment because I haven't got much of a clue any more (since in a typical school fashion we did this project once so my brain has since forgotten it). I am hoping that we will sew a lot so that this will become a skill into adulthood (but I'm going to have learn alongside Springy).

I've also bought some felt to make the ballet shoe stocking thing as a room decoration. So far we've cut out the pattern (well I have - she just watched a bit but is so busy playing with everyone else here).