I am working on a family of felt penguins for a group show I will be part of at bookhou in Toronto in July. The show will be called "Winged Migration" and will include work by Gennine Zlatkis, Abigail Brown, Margie Oomen, and Arounna Khounnoraj. I'm very excited. I wanted to try making my birds in felt, and making them bigger. This penguin family will include two more adults (the mom and a friend?), another egg, and a newly hatched chick.
This penguin is 15% larger than my original penguins and I loved sewing him in wool felt. I was a stumped for a day or two when it came to covering his legs and feet. When I sew birds from quilting cotton I cover the wire with floral tape and torn strips of fabric, but I wanted to stick with wool for this guy.
I emailed Laurie Sharp, whose book Wool Pets is an inspiration to me. I have done almost no needle felting, but I want to learn and Laurie is the expert. She emailed right back and suggested wrapping roving around the wire and wet felting it. Perfect. I did as Laurie suggest, and put a few stitches in the roving to hold it in place on the wire. Then I dipped his little toes in hot soapy water and rubbed them between my fingers for several minutes to felt the fibers. I need to order a barbed needle and get started doing some needle felting. I want to make the chick look fluffy and I'm thinking I could needle felt gray roving right onto his body.
This is so great. I love how you can see what he is feeling so clearly. I just watched March of the Penguins, and this just goes perfectly with it. I always love seeing what you’re working on. Thanks for sharing.
Nice work. Can’t wait to see the whole family. After making your Spring Bunny pattern, you’ve got me hooking on working with wool felt. Love it!
Be careful with needle felting…it’s addictive!
I got the best gray alpaca roving from Alpacas of Niagara In Niagara County, NY…it would be a perfect match for your penguin family:)
great work! my fiber group is currently immersed in felt stuffs… i find that felting can be absolutely addictive, as previous comment mentions…
i love the idea of your fluffy chick!
You’re coming to Toronto!?! That’s really exciting – it will be great to see your work in person.
Roving is a perfect solution! I use it around my wire armatures all the time. The penguins are looking great. My nephew requested two penguins recently, so it’s time I got started on mine too!
Can’t wait to see the rest of your family…
i am in love with the lines, posture and curves here abby
so exciting!!
These guys are precious! I love the look of and can almost feel the wool felt! Rich! Can’t wait to see what you do with the baby chick! 🙂
Such a beautiful penguin. Looks like he should be in the film “March of the Penguins”. Gorgeous.
I haven’t even read the posting but I laughed out loud and my face is contorted in the biggest smile by the image! Great going.
This is my first post here, but I felt it was necessary. That penguin is just soo adorable! You did a great job, and I want to make one now.
My life has taken me away from blog reading for a bit and I am catching up. Looks like you have been busy! The penguin is great standing astride his egg. Hope all is well.
So beautiful….
Teresa
I was just going to say the same thing! Where in Toronto is the show going to be (it’s kind of a big place, you know!)
The show will be at bookhou. I’m very excited! Gennine Zlatkis, Abigail Brown, Margie Oomen, and Arounna Khounnoraj are showing with me! Hooray!