I was working on a few felt friends this weekend and wanted to share them.  The platypus is a pattern from the book is “Pipsqueaks, Itsy-Bitsy Felt Creations to Stitch & Love” by Sally Dixon.  Then from that, I altered the idea and made up the turtle.  These little critters are only about 2.5 inches. 

This is Evelyn Inchworm which is a critter from Wee Wonderfuls pattern book.  I didn’t use the pattern from the book but winged it.  The glasses are Barbie Doll accessories and are a bit too big but I tied them in the back and tried to make it work out.  They stick out a bit more than I want but I think it’s OK. 

I found this adorable book while traveling this summer and had to make the elephant on the cover.  The inside has many other cute animals too, and I’m currently working on some strawberries, but it was the elephant that sold me.   Pattern and ides is from the book is “Pipsqueaks, Itsy-Bitsy Felt Creations to Stitch & Love” by Sally Dixon.

Since I was traveling, I didn’t have anything on hand … but I soon did!  I now have a nice little traveling sewing box that I can use to continue creating these felt animals. 

Unless you have to have the elephant, like I did, then my suggestion for the book would be so-so.  Other 3D animals are in the back section such but are limited to a platypus, tiny puppy and some mice.  Almost all the other projects are 2D items such as finger puppets, keychain tags or token envelopes – those aren’t really my style but I think my kids can enjoy creating them. 

I categorized this under “felting” because it this tiny elephant is made from sheet felt, however, they are embroidered together instead of needle-felted.  This will just be an all-purpose felt category.  Enjoy!

I have another felting project to share.  This one is reminiscent of Shirley from Shaun the Sheep. I love watching stop motion clay movies – it’s always incredible what they can do and the amount of time it takes to make them.  Anyway, this idea is from some wool balls that I found on Amazon and thought it would be easy to CASE it.  So I convert one of my Mom’s wool balls so she would have a friend to do laundry with. I didn’t take a picture, but I added a small tail on the other side. 

Feeling a little felty?  He he he.  I have another felt friend that I finished – this one is a Dimensions Hedgehog needle felting kit.  I like the needles that come with the Dimensions kits so I’ll probably buy a couple more.  This turned out close the instructions but not exactly – I had trouble attaching the feet so I changed the angle a little.  It still works out but I need to practice that technique a little more. 

Tweet, tweet, tweet.  This is a felted bird I created using the De Witte Engel Birthday Bird kit.  It actually has a odd story to go along with him.  I purchased the kit about two years ago – it was a beginning kit and would be my first experience with felting.  OK, good, this was something I could handle.  Little did I know what I was getting myself into.  After breaking my needles, I purchased replacements only to loose them.  I found other replacement needles but had then lost the bird.  Arg!   I found the bird a month later but, you guessed it, my needles were now missing.  This just wasn’t in the stars for me so I gave up.  But not really, as you can plainly see, I found it and my needles a couple weeks ago.  Voila!