That wave has now crashed on the shore and I decided that more practice was needed prior to working on my swap badges.
What better felting practice than to give Frankie his bride.
I made the large (4″) bride first and then made a couple of changes to the pattern. One change was to give the bride a more flattering décolletage and the other change was to the bouquet. The bouquet in the large bride was done by needle felting bits of pink felt — I didn’t like the lack of definition, so in the smaller bride (2.5″), the bouquet is made of french knots (thank you, youtube tutorial).
I also learned something about needle felting. Those numbers assigned to the needles (e.g., 38T, 36S, 42T)? They actually mean something, lol. After breaking the one 40T needle I had, I switched to a larger needle and it just chewed the felt to bits. I rushed off to etsy and purchased some 42T needles from Red Barn Farm — much better results.
Here are some action shots from when I was putting the small bride together. Each pic is of the pieces I felted before adding the next layer.
I never work in felt. It’s a mushy, shreddy fabric that really isn’t suitable for the teeny detail work that I love.
But leave it to the Craftster crowd to make me mutter, “never say never.”
The most lovely and talented BirdBones has inspired me with her fabulous felt badges (only “Friends of Craftster” will be able to see this link). BirdBones also inspired me just by being an absolutely fabulous human being.
Then there was Limeriot’s Tutorial which made me think that some of my graphic design work (crafting does not pay the rent, ya know) would convert to felt badge patterns.
Oh, and then there was the amazing Felt Badge Swap Gallery — talk about a swap gallery filled with crafty win!
Finally, there’s noooitaremybirthday’s Lorax that features needle felting — I was intrigued by how the felt just blended together.
I had to give it a try.
The tall Frankie is 4.5″ (11.5cm) and the wee Frankie is 2.25″ (5.7cm). While I was fairly pleased with the results, I’m also well aware that there are many flaws and that it’s going to take a lot of practice for my skill level to be on par with my felty gurus.
DOWNLOAD: If you’d like to felt Frankie (Mr. Jivvy insists that “felt” (the fabric) is not a verb, lol… silly mister), here’s the PDF file you can download: Free Frankenstein’s Monster Felt Badge Pattern. The download includes the pattern in both sizes.
Please feel free to felt Frankie… and to do it better than I did.
