5 Faves

One.

Pretty flowers, start of summertime!

Two.

Tiny Asian peppers. So small, so delicious.

Three.

Giant Ginko Tree. There's a lot of tree to hug.

Four.

Muffin tops. I just found them in the grocery store here in Japan, amazing! They come in packs of 2...yum!

Five.

Needle felting!!! I'm so obsessed with it now, it's so much fun!

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I love needle felting!!!

Seriously, I can't believe I haven't tried needle felting before! I bought some loose wool fibers today at the craft store and decided to start small with making some simple coasters.

I've done felting before with knitting projects, but never with just loose wool. I read some felting 101 here that was very helpful.

The edges on the coasters aren't completely straight. I could have cut them for a smoother edge but I personally like the look of the natural felting. Once I felted the coasters into square-ish shapes I began the needle felting. It's way easier than I was expecting, just keep stabbing away with a felting needle! Just make sure the object you're felting onto is resting on a surface that you can stab on. I put my coaster on a thick (new) kitchen sponge and it worked perfectly. I noticed they sell special "stabbing boards" at the craft store but they just looked like giant sponges. I opted not to spend the $10 on one and used my cheap-o sponge instead. It was great. Felting is great. Wool is great.

And, of course, weekends are great.

The bear

Here he is! Not quite finished, as you can see. He's been stuffed, sewn and ready for his face to be embroidered. I'm practicing before I embroider right on his face. It'd be a pity to mess it up now. I'm using the pattern for the flat ted bear from Zoe Mellor's Knitted Toys. She doesn't give any instructions for how to embroider the face, and I'm no pro at that stuff...so yes, I'm worried I'm going to mess it up. No one wants a creepy-faced teddy bear. Wish me luck.

After a little embroidery practicing, I'm going to attempt needle felting this weekend. Everytime I go to the fabric store here, there are these cute-but-kinda-weird prepackaged felting kits to make little animals, people, food, ect. I can't quite make up my mind about them so I'm going to just make one. And although I might not be a fan of the felted toy-things, I think I will definitely like needle felting on fabric. I have this really neat felted bag that my sister got me in Sweden, and I would love to be able to recreate a version of it. I also really think this needle felted bag is pretty adorable. Ah...the weekend.