Tutorial: Needle Felted Christmas Pudding

We're having a bit of an enforced Christmas break here at Always Autumn. It's been ridiculously stormy. While that's not very good news for blog entries but it is a good news for crafting. Because I can't go outside.

I've been making these little Christmas pudding ornaments for people in my knitting group, my spinning group and family. They are really cute. You can thank Stephen for this tutorial. He's so in love with these puddings that he wanted me to share them with everyone I can while keeping one back for our own tree of course.

I've included the step where I blended two browns together to get a cool Christmas puddingy effect. If you don't want to blend feel free to leave them out.

Skill Level: you'll need to know how to needle felt, you might want to know how to blend.
Time Taken: Two episodes of Futurama, with commentary
Materials:

• those colours of fibre for felting. I used a mix of corridale and merino although I generally don't like using merino. What can I say, I was seduced by colour. 
• Needle felting needle
• Foam pad or similar
• Scissors 
• Gold lurex thread
• A darning needle
• Hand carders if you'd like to blend

Ready?

Okay blenders: let's take our browns out and mix them together. 

You want about 1 part light brown to 3 parts dark brown

You don't need to mix it thoroughly. I used about three passes to lightly blend the colour. 

 Pull your lovely blend off 

If you're not blending you want to join us here: Take a small handful of fibre and shape it into a ball. Stab it into shape with your needle, making a nice tight ball. 

To neaten up your ball take little bit more of your fibre and spread it out as thinly as possible, stop when you start getting holes. 

Take this 'skin' and wrap your ball with it. Needle felt it into place, if you've got a fine needle you'll want to use it here. Hopefully that will have given your ball an nice finish.

Next we're going to put our icing on. Take a bit of your white and make it into a circle about 3cm across or the size of a 2p which ever is easier for you to visualise. Start from the centre and felt it into place. 

To get the runs in the icing simply pull on part of your circle, drag it down (or up) and felt into place. Once you are happy with the shape go round and give everything one last good felt. Check your ball, if it's got a little misshapen then give it a quick stab in the problem areas.  

Once you are happy with the shape go round and give everything one last good felt. Check your ball, if it's got a little misshapen then give it a quick stab in the problem areas.  

Next we want to make our sultanas. This always takes less fibre then I think it will so I pinch off a tiny amount of fibre and start rolling it around my fingers to make a tight ball. You can always add more if you took too little 

I make about five and distribute them randomly around the pudding. Again you may need to make a couple of stabs to get your pudding looking ball shaped again.

To top off the pudding we'll need some holly. I've found the easiest way to get a nice definition in those spiky leaves is to make a rectangle of fibre the size of your finger tip and tightly felt it.

Then take your scissors and make some snips along the top edge. The bottom edge will be used to attach it so you don't need to bother snipping that. 

Hold it in place and felt that bottom edge down.

Our holly berries are made just like our sultanas but in red and you only need two. 

Felt those in place with a little lighter touch so that the stick off the top of your pudding rather than blend into it. You can see that all that felting has once again made my pudding a bit lumpy. Take your needle to it again until it's perfectly round. Ish.

To hang our ornament we're going to take our lurex and cut about 15cm off. Give the bottom a really big knot 

Pass it through your pudding from bottom to top. 

Bring it back down, a couple of millimetres away from were it came out. 

Give it another lovely big knot.

Take a little bit more of your main colour and cover the knots. Give it one last go over to check that everything is nice, neat and sturdily attached. Then... Hang!

Needle Felted Jiji

I know, I know. It's so cute you want to puke. I dressed up as Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service for a costume party at Guides and needle felted this Jiji to go with me. I'm not very happy with the eyes but Stephen likes it so I expect it will stay.

The Wedding Post

So last Sunday, on our 5th anniversary  Stephen and I got married. Because there is so much I could write about it, I'm just going to limit myself to a run down of awesome local businesses that provides stuff for the wedding and the crafty bits I made myself. I'm almost certainly forgetting something, I'll try to edit as I remember them.

We got married at Kent's Cavern in Torquay. It was amazing. Getting married in a cave is the best thing ever. All of the staff are capital-L Lovely and they put out vegetarian nibbles for our drinks reception.

That cardigan is my after ceremony cardigan. With a big 'Just Married' design I felted across the back.

My amazingly kick ass boots came from Vegetarian Shoes. I just can't stop wearing them. So did Stephen's come to think of it. We're both big fans.

The guest book is a sketch book I covered with fabric. I'd embroidered a red tie and red dress on the fabric before hand.

Lunch for the wedding party was a portion of chips from Drake's in Babbacombe. Delicious. Especially after such an early start.

The card box was also hand made. After people insisted I have one.

In the evening a huge, beautiful and delicious buffet was put on by Occombe Cafe. Mostly vegetarian food with some salmon for Stephen.

Each of our guests went home with a chocolate that we had specially made by Cockington Chocolate Company.  I just loved them.

Of course big thanks to our family and friends. It was a real community effort to get our relationship to the legally binding stage. At least to get it there smoothly, and with a card box. Special thanks to Tom, for taking all the photos I've used in this post.

Swallows Cardigan

I've taken a turn for the worse which means bad things like peeing in cups, getting prodded in the stomach*, and being stoned on antibiotics. It also means that I've been comfort crafting. 

I can't look cure when I'm this sick, have silly instead

Like the dotty cardigan I used a basic cardigan from H&M and did a quick decorating job. This time needle felting two swallows on the... well I was going for clavicle but there wasn't really enough space. 

I held this pose for another second before falling over.

*not so funny story: when I went to the creepy doctor back in October he was jabbing me around the ribs and asking if that hurt. I said no and he asked why I was wincing then. I told him it was because he was touching me. Not my diplomatic best.

Tutorial: Needle Felted Bad Piggies

Ever since the arrival of my iPad Stephen has become obsessed with Angry Birds and... enemies. Armed with just the right shade of green fibre I set out to make him his own bad piggy. Here's how.

Trying to keep this dude away from my eggs

Skill Level: Beginner
Time Taken: One Episode of Gilmore Girls
Materials:

• Roving in a lime green, forest green, white and black
• Needle Felting Needles. I used a 32 Gauge for the initial shape and 40 gauge for anything that shows
• Foam mat or whatever surface you use to keep safe

Colours Of Pig

 And we're off...

First make a rough ball, we're looking for a size just smaller than a golf ball.

Then flatten the ball slightly by pressing down on the top and felting it down.

You want to end up with a squished oval.

Next layer a small knob of roving on top and felt into place.

Cover the base with a final, fine layer of the lime roving. It should now look more like a pear without it's stem.

Next we're going to make the ears. You want to make a disk roughly the size of your little finger tip. Make a second one the same size.

Next add a tiny ball of the forest green to the bottom edge of the ears.

Attach the ears by holding them onto the body and felting the bottom edges down. Remember that the two ears should be positioned asymmetrically.

Now you have a body with ears. Don't worry if it's getting a little misshapen, we can fix that at the end.

Next it's time to make the snout. This is the biggest disk we're going to make but it's still going to be only a couple of mil bigger than the ears. Squash it slightly to make an oval.

Add the nostrils by making a small ball of black and flattening it against the main bit of the snout as you felt it. Again remember that the nostrils are asymmetrical.

Attach the completed snout to the body so that the top of the snout hits the centre of the body.

Next the eyes. Make two small disks in white just smaller than the ears. As we did with the nostrils; roll a ball of black to make the pupils. The pupils are also positioned asymmetrically, so the eyes appear to be looking in different directions.

Attach the eyes to the body so the top of them is just above the top of the snout.

Finnish up by fixing any lumps and bumps, and snipping any wispy bits you hate. Name the piggy. Try not to throw any birds at your hard work. And please let me know if you make one.