Felt Saturn . . . perfect for imaginative play!

Saturn is complete; it’s time to celebrate!  This felted Saturn was quite a challenge.  I just kept at it and fiddled around with the rings and the density of the fibers until it was just right.  I tried to somewhat maintain a color scheme that resembled that of the actual planet.

While I was creating this planet, I had some ideas for future projects.  The first idea was inspired by the rings of the planet: a felted chain.  I thought why not leave the planetary body out completely and just felt a long soft chain of rings; you could then hang a toy on them or simply turn one ring on the chain over and over again.  So be expecting a multi-colored felted chain in the future!

Also,  I realized that my children were very intrigued at the extra ring around this toy ball.  So, I might use this ringed ball as a prototype for some more colorful and imaginative balls in the future.  Maybe instead of rather dull planetary colors, I can use some bright vivid primary colors.

And last but not least, this toy can move.  I was trying to create a little toy Saturn and I did; but I also created my first felted top.  Just watch it spin.  You can also roll it on the edge of its rings as a wheel down the hallway floor.  The point is:  this was one of my most challenging and unforgiving projects, yet I walked away with much more than a felted Saturn.  I walked away with some great ideas.  What more could you ask for?

A Felted Moon . . . Not quite!

Alright, I promised a moon.  However, the felted moon did not turn out the way that I intended it to.  I was lacking some key colors to really make this miniature moon realistic or for that matter even slightly resemble it.  So I decided rather than hide my little felted moon from the eyes of fellow felters, that I would share my failure with you.  My moon is sitting atop my white wool baby jar in the top righthand corner!  Yes I use baby jars and yeast jars to hold my colored wool.  It works great; I can easily see the palette of colors I have to choose from.

My husband dyed my wool for me a few months ago and I’ve been working off this color palette for some time now.  The colors turned out fantastic as you can see; we used a method that utilizes “Wilton” food coloring to dye the wool.  By the way “Wilton” coloring is excellent for getting vivid colors on cakes or cookies.  It really makes a red or black icing which is amazing; generic food coloring can’t make those bold colors.  The ability for this brand to make such vibrant colors is why I chose it for my wool.  However, I have not yet found a way to make gray wool.  And a moon without gray wool looks ridiculous.  Therefore,  my new goal is to come up with a way to dye wool gray and share this with everyone in the future.  Once I have successfully dyed a batch of gray wool I can use it to tweak my moon design and then I can show you the new improved version.  If anyone has had any success with dying their own wool gray, please comment below; I could really use the advice.  Otherwise,  if you’re in the same grayless boat as me, stay-tuned and I will wow you in a few weeks!  So you heard it right, a “how-to” dye wool post is up and coming.  See you soon!

History, Astronomy, and Needle Felting!

The seven classical planets were the non-fixed objects that one could see in the sky.  The word planet is originally a Greek word meaning “wanderer”; therefore, a few bodies we would not consider planets today are among the list of this ancient classification of planets.  Why?  Because they wandered, even the sun and moon were part of the classical planets being that they changed positions among the otherwise fixed constellations in the sky!

The seven classical planets include:  the Sun, Moon, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus.  Today I am sharing the first in my “classical planets” collection:  a felted SUN!  Look how adorable it is all surrounded by the deep darkness of space and little twinkling stars.   I know, I know it’s missing that special glow; but just let your imagination take over from here.   If my husband had helped create this photo, no doubt the stars would have mimicked actual constellations.  I, however, am not as talented in the science of astronomy and just drew little dots to give the illusion of stars.

I love incorporating education into my felted creations and the seven classical planets offer an abundance of ways to do that, from history lessons to astronomy lessons.  For example, the days of the week are named after these seven classical planets: Sun-day, Moon-day, Mars is Tuesday, Mercury is Wednesday, Jupiter is Thursday , Venus is Friday, and Saturn is Saturday.  At first glance only Saturday, Sunday, and Monday appear to fit, but if you look into the etymology of the others it becomes more apparent.  For example, Friday comes from the norse goddess Frigg who is the goddess of love.  Obviously, love and Venus are like peanut butter and jelly.  The tie between friday and Venus is even more evident in other languages; in French, Friday is named “Vendredi” and is derived from the Latin word “Veneris” or day of Venus.

Wow, who knew that etymology and felting would ever cross one another; but I managed to do just that.  I am intrigued at ways one can incorporate toys into life lessons.  Just the other day I pulled out my felted globe and was teaching my daughter the seven continents with it.  I hope you enjoyed your lesson for today and I will be back in a few days with my felted version of the moon!  Have a wonderful Mercury-Day(whoops, Wednesday)!  I just love this stuff!

A Felted Earth . . . Holding the World in Your Hands!

It’s back to school time for a lot of kids around my area of the world.  So, I decided to make something for the occasion.  I’ve been homeschooling my children for about 7 years now; last year, my son was given the project to make a map of the world, and he did a fantastic job of it.  Following in his footsteps, I’ve decided to jump start the school year with a serious lesson in geography by creating a felted model of our little home-EARTH!

This was no easy task; and I’m pretty sure that the north-south axis is a little off.  If this felted planet was home to millions, they would be in big trouble.  I got lost in the deep blue of the ocean and my mind started to drift during those stages.  I honestly felt a little anxious, as if I was in the middle of an ocean.

As a model, I’ll be honest, every continent has lost a little shoreline and Asia is probably proportionally larger than it even is in real life.  And it’s a huge continent!  For a toy, I think that this felted Earth is just perfect.  Who doesn’t want to hold the world in their hands.  All of my kids did!