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Felted Jewelery – Wild Poopy Blooms – Tutorial

What You Need

  • Tracing paper
  • Sheet of green acrylic/polyester craft felt
  • 1.5 ounces dark and light green blended roving
  • Felting needle
  • .7 grams green felt ball
  • 1 ounce red Merino roving
  • 5 grams orange roving
  • 5 grams oyellow/gold roving
  • Cordless sander with felting attachement (optional)
  • 1 gram brown wool roving
  • Flexible beading wire
  • Upholstery or tapestry needle
  • 15 green felt balls, each 1.2 grams
  • 2 crimp beads, #2
  • Crimping pliers
  • Wire cutters

Make It

    CREATE THE LEAVES

  1. Cut out the leaf shape from sheet of green craft felt. Do 16 green leaves.

  2. Blend the light and the dark green roving together and than needle felt the blend to both sides of a leaf shape until the total thickness is approximately 1/4-inch. Needle felt the remaining leaf shapes in same maner.

  3. Gently wet felt the leaves to smooth out all the holes from the needle felting, and to tighten the fibers. After the final rinse, form the leaf to give it small arch, and leave to dry.

  4. BUTTON CLOSURE CLASP

  5. Roll a .7 gram green felt ball to serve as the closure button. To make the button closure clasp for the necklace, tear off approximately 7 inches of roving, and check the thickness by twisting the two ends in opposite directions.The middle should be approximately 7/32 inch thick. Double the roving over itself, keeping your index finger in the bottom of the loop. Wet the roving in warm soapy water and begin felting the coil shape, still keeping your index finger in place in order to create a felt loop at the end.

felt model

Frequently check the loop size against the.7 gram felt ball closure to make sure if fits snugly through the loop. If the loop is too big, the clasp will not serve its purpose. If the loop needs to be smaller, simply remove your finger and felt the coil end a bit more. You can always stretch the loop out a little if it gets too small.

  1. To create the flowers, lay out two layers of red roving in approximately 4-inch diameter. Now tease out the orange roving and lay two thin layers of it on top of the red. Tour goal here is to create a blended watercolor effect for the insides of the flowers. Pull off a tuft of yellow riving and create a cobweb that covers the pile. Tear off a small piece of orange roving and add it to the center. Finish off the pile with cobweb ring of yellow. Remember, there are no rules here; it’s simply a matter of personal taste. Keep in mind that the center of the flower will be covered by a tuft of brown, so plan your layers and spacing accordingly. Turn the pile over onto your wet felting surface so the yellow side is face down, and red in face up. Tear off a small piece of green roving, twirl it into a flat, round dot, an place it onto the back center of the red pile.
  2. Wet sand the layers, checking often o make sure the green center piece hasn’t slid out of place.

  3. Once you are happy with the shape of your flower, rinse it thoroughly in cold water, towel dry, and reshape

  4. Use the green dot as a guide for the center point, and carefully trim away the unfinished edge so that it’s approximately 2 inches from the center of the flower. Remove a little at a time. Re-form the flower, and leave to dry. Repeat for the remaining 6 flowers.

  5. Once the flowers are dry, you can needle felt small tufts of brown roving into the centers. It doesn’t take to many pokes with the needle to keep them in place and keep their appearance fluffy versus completely felted.

  6. ASSAMPLE THE NECKLACE

  7. Cut the loop end of the button clasp so it’s 1½ inches in length. Now set the small green felt ball next to the rest of the remaining green coil and trim off a piece so that, including the felt ball, it equals 1½ inches in length.

  8. Thread flexible beading wire through a large upholstery or tapestry needle, and string on a green felt ball. Place two leaves side by side so that they both curl away from each other, and string them on the needle, followed by another large felt ball.

  1. Put the needle through the green dot on the back of the poppy and through another large felt ball. Continue stringing this patern until you have strung the last large green felt ball.

  2. Remove the needle and string one crimp bead onto the wire. Replace the needle and string the non-loop green coil piece. If there is an end on the green coil that is thicker, string that end onto the needle first. Then, take a small stitch through the bottom of the edge of the small felt ball and put the needle back through the green coil. Remove the needle and put the end of the beading wire through the crimp bead( figure1 ).

    figure1Crimp the bead with crimping pliers. Trim away any excess beading wire.

  3. Go back through the necklace and adjust each piece, making sure to remove gaps or sections where the pieces fit together too snugly. The goal is for the overall necklace to be able to move freely, but not have any gaps.

  4. Trim the beading wire, leaving a 3 to 4 inch tail. String one crimp bead onto the wire.

    figure2 Replace the needle and string the loop end of the clasp, coil and first, onto the needle and then pass the needle back down through the coil (just next to where the wire came up, see figure2 ). Remove the needle and put the tail of the wire through the crimp bead. Adjust the tension, and crimp the crimp bead. Trim away the excess wire.

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