Venomous Monster Crafted Into a Lovable, Felt Toy

This is my new felt toy made for my ocean theme collection.  He is modeled after a blue-ringed octopus.  A blue-ringed octopus is a very poisonous creature and at first I thought maybe it was a bit misguided to make a cuddly toy version of it.  After a little more thought, I decided many, many toys are constructed to resemble dangerous animals and that part of the fun of animal toys is the fact that you could never pet or snuggle with one in real life.  So in the fashion of the monstrous grizzly turned teddy bear or the unpredictable monkey morphing into a laughable, mischievous, cuddly friend.  I bring you the most venomous octopus crafted into a sweet, meek, soft felt toy.

In real life this golf ball sized octopus could land you in the emergency room or worse.  Because, I am a mother, I think it is best to use these little soft versions of “very dangerous if provoked” creatures as a medium to teach your little ones about the world around them.  So with that inspiration in mind, I will share what I’ve learned about this amazing octopus.  He is home in the South Pacific Ocean from Japan to Australia; but mostly, he is found around southern Australia.  His blue rings become more visible when provoked; so even an inconspicuous octopus you need to be wary of because once those blue rings reveal themselves the bite is coming!  When you are bit, paralysis will set in quickly(body and respiratory); artificial means of respiration are required within minutes and must continue until the paralysis subsides.

There you have it; this octopus like many other creatures in nature is very poisonous but yet very visually appealing. I really wanted an octopus in my ocean collection and the bright vivid nature of this one really caught my eye.  I think in toy form, he is cute, adorable, soft and snuggly.  Just don’t snuggle the squirmy guy in real life!

Ocean Themed Felted Playthings

Summer is about to come to an end; so this is your last chance to head to the beach.  Okay, maybe you can’t head to the beach; so I’m going to bring the beach to you as a final summer farewell.  For the next few weeks my projects are going to focus on ocean themed animals.  A few days ago, I introduced my “Rainbow Fish” and today I’m going to reveal my “French Angelfish”.  Aren’t they just so chummy!

I didn’t make a beach trip this year.  Actually, the last time I was beachbound was several years ago.  I was 8 months pregnant and now my little baby is two years old.  I can almost smell the ocean looking at these pictures.  Do you feel the warm ocean breeze and the sand between your toes yet?

The first fish toy I created was inspired by a small felted ball and a book my oldest daughter had when she was a baby.  She just loved it.  “The Rainbow Fish Bath Book” is the name if you have a tiny cutie in need of reading material for the bathtub; the fish was multicolored and obviously a creation of the illustrator’s mind.  My “Rainbow Fish” is also a creation of my mind and while multicolored, I chose a slightly different color theme to really make it pop.  The blue on yellow really brings character to this fish.

The second fish I created was inspired from an actual living creature: the french angelfish.  The french angelfish is found in the western Atlantic Ocean near Florida, the Bahamas, Brazil, etc.  The colors were selected based upon the actual colors of this fish.  Only the juvenile french angelfish have the 5 yellow stripes.  The scales of the adult fish have a golden edge to them. The juvenile french angelfish is the equivalent of the bumblebee of the sea.  While I was creating him, I just kept thinking bumblebee.  I added a little white wool to his yellow stripes to soften it up a bit.  This fish is a challenge to stand up because he is just balanced on his fin; that just makes it more fun, right?  I think he turned out pretty well.

For my next beachy toy, maybe I’ll make an adorable octopus, a cute crab, or a playful porpoise.  Now wipe the sand off your feet, and join me in a few days with your suit and towel for some more beach fun.

Using Embroidery Details on a Needle Felt Project

This is a tutorial intended to help fellow needle felters out there with embellishments and details; however, I hope that non-needle felters out there will peruse the tutorial in order to get a sense of the process that I go through in order to create my little felt toys.  This is the first toy that I am sharing the beginning to end process; so please enjoy!

Sometimes I like to incorporate embroidery into my needle felted toys.  Today I am going to be showing you an example of when I would use the technique of embroidery.  I am by no means an expert at embroidery; my mother-in-law was kind enough to hand down her embroidery thread collection to me.  I have a choice of hundreds of colors to choose from.  I do not like letting resources go to waste and honestly embroidery really works better for some of the details.  For my example, I am going to use this felted fish.

I began my fish by felting a round ball and creating a triangle with a dent in the middle for a tail fin.  Then I attached the tail fin to the ball by needle felting.  Now, I wanted a few lines to embellish the tail fin.  I initially pulled out a few fine tufts of wool and needle felted them into place.  The problem is that with flat pieces of felt(which the tail fin is), when you needle felt on one side it pokes out the other.  This leaves an unfinished look on the opposite side and when you turn it to that side to try and fix it, you mess up the original side. This is fine in some instances, if only one side needs to appear finished, but for a tail fin both sides were to be visible.

Because I was unsatisfied with the felted details, I decided to try with a similar color embroidery thread.  The results were much neater on both sides.  And the embroidery thread had a glossy finish which I felt added to my project being that it was a fish!

Now on to the side fins, first I constructed two somewhat triangular shapes and felted them to each side of my fish.  I did the same embroidery details on the side fins using the most basic of stitches and the same colored thread.

As you can see I also added an adorable face to my fish before the next step.  The details of the face I needle felted on.  I prefer to needle felt the details on a 3-dimensional object like this ball.  It is easier than trying to angle the embroidery needle in just so and I prefer the soft look of felting on my faces.

Now I have added the limbs(fins), face, and embroidery details, but he looks a little messy due to the stray embroidery threads and knots.  This is easily fixed when you are adding a finishing color over the core color.  For my finishing color, I chose a bright yellow.  I imagined a tropical fish!  When needle felting the finishing color on the fish body I simply had to carefully encase all the stray embroidery threads under the yellow wool. Also, wherever there is an embroidery thread knot extreme care is needed, so as to not damage the felting needle.

As you can see, adding a finishing color, has cleaned up the fish amazingly well.  Those little threads that were unsightly are covered up nicely.  However, I am still not satisfied;  he looks like a tennis ball fish!(at least that’s what my husband said!).  I needed to break up this yellow color and what better way than adding the illusion of scales.  Again, I will needle felt the scales because this is detail on a 3-dimensional ball.  I simply pulled small tufts of wool and stretched them into place, needle felting it down as I went.

And now he is complete; he(or she) is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoyed viewing the toy making process in its’ entirety.  Please feel free to share what you think of my newest addition!

Monkeying Around: Removing a Broken Felting Needle

Let me take you back a few days.  I’m in the middle of a felted project: a monkey!  These were my thoughts at the end of that project: “Wow, 4 hours and I’m finally close to done. This monkey is turning out so adorable. Ha, he’s holding a banana! Just one eye to touch up and I’m all ready to show him off. It broke? I can’t see the needle! Where is it?!”.

Has this ever happened to you?  I’ve broken a handful of needles before, but this was the first time it disappeared into my project.  I was heartbroken for a moment; then I realized maybe someone who is not a child could still enjoy it.  Perhaps I could give it as gift to an adult with the additional warning of “Please don’t let any child play with this.”.  But I intended this for a children’s toy and the disappointment just wouldn’t go away.

But luckily I have the best husband in the whole world.  After working a very long day and before he even sat down to relax, he offered his hand at removing this broken felting needle from my project.  I was nervous that he was going to ruin it, but it was already unplayable so I eagerly jumped at his help.  He carefully started prying little fibers off with the sturdy end of the broken needle.  He told me that he was “going to have to remove his eye”.  I swallowed and watched him maim my once adorable little monkey.

Finally, he found the broken bit of needle.  It was right where I suspected just a little farther inside his head.  My husband proceeded to grab the tweezers as if he was removing a splinter from a child’s foot or playing the game “Operation”.  My childhood memories took over as I halfway expected to hear a buzz.  Finally, he pulled the little bit out of the monkey’s head!  I was so happy.  He handed me the fuzz that had been removed during the monkey’s surgery and told me I should replace exactly that much wool into the eye socket and then felt a new eye into place.  One eye!  That is all the repair that was needed.

So I went to work the next day.  Definitely, this one eye took me longer than previously, because I had to go extremely slow and be very careful with the needle size I chose.  His head was very dense all ready and the wrong needle at the wrong angle could have landed me in the exact same spot.  But I did it.  I finished my little banana-holding, bright-eyed, big-earred monkey!

I hope that this story gave you some insight as to the appropriate way to remove a broken felting needle from YOUR project.  Just remember the exact place that the needle broke and please don’t use scissors to cut open the project unless all else fails.  Cutting the fibers will make it very hard to refelt after removal.  Simply pry the fibers away in the exact spot you suspect the needle is lodged; you can use the sturdier end of the broken needle or tweezers to do this.  And remember felting a repair means that you are felting on dense material to start with and a very small needle is required to do this.  Unfortunately, the very small needles are the most brittle; so, extreme care is necessary in any repair.    And please, nobody ever give a child a needle felted piece with a broken needle in it; while the needle may seem like it will be lodged in there forever, over time it could weasel itself out and end up poking your young child’s hand or worse being swallowed by your child. Happy felting and don’t worry; you CAN locate that broken bit!