While away in Porlock we visited a gift shop in Selworthy and Hay spotted a felted owl, similar to the one below, maintaining she's going to have a go at making one using the excess sheep's fleece I bought for the pond filtration system.
To help her I bought a set of felting needles. They have siny serrations that felt the wool as you stab it. Felting means entangling the fibres to compact it and is achieved either by using hot water and pounding the wool for a long time, or the needle method, whereby the serrations on the needles grab the fibres as they go in and drag them internally to tangle. The needle method allows fine tuning of the shape.
Intrigued, I thought I'd give it a go and managed to produce this after about 10 minutes - the start of a Shaun the Sheep or a snowman. About as fine tuned as a Trabant, but it works - it just takes time and plenty of blood in your fingers for when you accidentally stab yourself.
I initially hand washed the wool thoroughly to get rid of the lanolin and then carded it with a couple of cat brushes to get rid of the detritus - straw and the like- that washing couldn't remove.
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