Friday, September 18, 2009

Felted Fall Leaves

Blaze and I spent a couple days this week working on a little Autumn tree for our nature table. We started with a small clay flower pot that we filled with air drying clay.

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Then Blaze stuck a dead tree branch into the clay, so it looked like a little tree.

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We then made wet-felted Fall leaves, using some beautiful multi-color wool roving and small leaf shaped cookie cutters.

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Each cookie cutter was filled with the fluffy wool and then squirted with a bit of dish soap. Then hot water was drizzled over the yarn (just enough to get it thoroughly wet, but not enough to make it float).
Blaze started out, gently poking the wool down and into all the curves and corners of the cookie cutters with a knitting needle. Then as the water cooled down and the felting started to happen, he was able to use his fingers, as well as the knitting needle, to poke at the wool.

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It took about 15 minutes of rubbing and poking to get the wool to stay together in a satisfactory way. We then gently rinsed each leaf while it remained in it's cookie cutter, pressed the water out the best we could with our fingers, and carefully removed the "leaf" from the cookie cutter onto a folded towel. The "leaves" were then left to dry over night.

The next day, we used some orange embroidery floss to make loops, threaded though the "stem" of each leaf, and hung the leaves on the little tree.

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While Blaze was busy making tiny wool leaves, I made three larger ones, using a bigger size cookie cutter.

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The larger ones are to use as coasters.

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13 comments:

Joy said...

Those turned out really cute! I've used cookie cutters for needle felting before, but never wet felting. We'll have to try that!

Beth said...

I love what you did! What a great idea to use the cookie cutter! I just discovered your blog through Magic Onions and I'm glad I did.

Beth said...

I love what you did! What a great idea to use the cookie cutter! I just discovered your blog through Magic Onions and I'm glad I did.

Lisa said...

I really love these! My daughter and I recently started wet felting and fell in love with it! Your leaves are just beautiful! I can't wait for the leaves to start changing around here!

Kelly said...

Your felted autumn leaves are really beautiful! What a fantastic idea.

Sam said...

What lovely leaves. That looks like something we should try :-)

dawn klinge said...

Those leaves are beautiful! Great idea. :)

Christie said...

Very cute. You can also add liquid potpourri to use them as air fresheners. :)

Dana Leeds said...

I just found your blog through Magic Onions,too, and LOVE this project!!! I've never felted before and might have to give it a try. Thanks for the instructions!

Tammy said...

Oh gosh, I'm so far behind on reading my favorite blogs. I've got so many of your posts saved to my favorites, lol! I wanted to say how very pretty I think these are. The varigated colors are so true to life.

dawn klinge said...

I just finished doing this project with my kids. It turned out great. Thanks for the idea.

Rachel@oneprettything.com said...

What a wonderful project, I love your pretty leaves! Thanks so much for sharing, I'll be linking to this.

themagiconions said...

So sweet... I love these little autumn treasures.
Blessings and magic.

Crafty Crow