Showing posts with label needle felt patching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label needle felt patching. Show all posts

25.10.11

Headless Hare


Happily, this doesn't happen very often, but occasionally
I get halfway through a piece and realise that it is wrong to my original intention. As with this pre-ordered hare, Willow. Yesterday I realised that her arms were going to be too long for her body; cutting the arms down, as I did, didn't help. She needed more neck length. She was looking too tubby anyway - more like a rabbit than a hare. Only one thing to do...find the big scissors...
(If you are Janet of the Empty Nest, you might want to look away now...)


Cut off her head. It gives me a rare chance to look at cross section of one of my toys and see how densely it's been worked.



So the neck extending begins.





Once the wool is taking shape, I can hold the head on with a spare felting needle so that I can work on her more easily, in my hands.




About two hours after I cut her up, she is looking much better, but the joins are still weak and obviously showing.





So I tightly wrap some braces round the weak areas and needle them firmly -




- then carry on patching and smoothing. I also added more at her back, so that she didn't look too oddly tall.




After about five hours, I have a shape I am happy with and pop some black headed pins in her, so that we can say hello at last. Her proper glass eyes will be added later, but I like to have my toys looking at me while I work on them, so pins will do for now.




Much better - see the improvement? (You can look again now Janet).