wet felting

We had excitement plus here today.. Jumeirah got a phonecall this morning saying she'd won first prize in an Easter colouring competition :)

Pretty funny seeing as I have spent all week telling her there are hundreds of entrants and its just good that she had a go. She was totally shocked to actually win but her comment was " see Mum, I told you I worked hard!"

Her prize was a playdough spaghettio factory thing and has provided much amusement and creative cooking in my household today :)

How I love free stuff.

This afternoon I also tried a craft that I have wanted to do for AGES but never was quite confident enough to do it... Wet Felting.
I'd seen tutorials. Watched Youtube clips. Googled. Researched. Planned. Until finally I just pulled my finger out and did it.


Jumeirah was keen to make a play mat and we had picked some beautiful merino wool a few weeks ago so she was really keen to do this.

We began by getting ready with a spray bottle of warm soapy water, some bubble wrap, a rolling pin and the merino wool.

I taught her to carefully pull apart the fibres of the wool and to lay them down on a sheet of bubble wrap, slightly overlapping each other. We talked about what would happen to our gorgeous puffy mound when it got wet. Then she lay her second layer in the other direction until it was quite a high pile. Once this is done, spray it well with warm water and lay a layer of bubble wrap over the top and begin to work the fibres together using your hands and the rolling pin.

Unfortunately I havent had the best track record for things working out first time this week... this was to be no exception and this is where we made a mistake. We had decided to make a green border to make it like grass around a pond, unfortunately we didnt overlap the green and the blues together enough.

Its something I vaguely thought would go wrong, but pushed on. So when I came to washing it out, it kinda fell apart around the edges. not to be put off, I just lay the mass of wet wool and smashed it over again :) It worked (well it worked enough).

I then had the crazy task of trying to hold it together and wash it but it worked ok, I then placed it in the hot dryer in a undie bag until it was dry.
With all the "whoopps" that went on with this project, I LOVE the result. The colours are beautiful, the texture is amazing.

Now all it needs is a few little folk to come play!!