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Winter Gift of Berries - A Felted Robins Picture

Winter Gift of Berries

By Lyn

My robin wreath has now seen two Christmases so I decided to retire it to make way for a new one for 2025, but as the robins were so cute I decided to re-cycle them into a new project, this wet-felted picture called ‘Winter Gift of Berries’.

This is the original felted and wire wreath:

One of the robins up close, with her wire legs that I swapped for yarn legs in my new picture:

I was so happy and in the moment making this cute project that I didn't photograph the process.  The background was made from many layers of drum-carded wool fibres – it needed to be substantial to accept the needle-felted robin shapes.

After wetting down the thick base of wool fibres, I put in place the branch (pre-felt with added white yarn), twig of berries (yarn and pre-felt circles), robin legs (yarn) and then sprinkled on some snowflakes (wool nepps).

The piece was rubbed on both sides until it made pre-felt. 

Then I added the robins, minus their original wire legs, and sprinkled a few snowflakes on them.

The felt was then rubbed only on the reverse side until the robins had bedded in and everything was secure, so as not to disturb the delicate robin features.

The robins are very slightly proud of the background but that gives the picture a bit of depth.

It was a very enjoyable picture to make 😊

 

Happy New Year! And a wet felted winter trees table centre!

Winter Trees Table Centre

By Annie

Happy New Year! I hope your year is going well so far. We had snow in the New Forest yesterday which is very relevant to my first make of the year - this hand felted, snowy winter trees table centre (size: approx 60cm / 24in).

I used the artwork of Eric Ravilious as inspiration in response to the Q4 challenge set over on the felting and fibre studio forum 

This was a double challenge for me as I chose his woodcut work for my inspiration, using a monochrome palette, and I usually like to go mad with colours, and the more bonkers the better!

The subject of the two pieces above, and the way he stylised it just really appealed to me, and the over sized snow flakes are fab!

It is made from white Merino wool tops and for the majority of the trees I used some very fragile t-shirt material to get the look of the woodcut. I’m really pleased it didn’t disintegrate since I couldn’t be bothered to make a sample! I also used some other reclaimed fabrics from various old garments and some yarns to add details.

 

I had begun this project with the idea of making a bowl but once I’d felted it I decided I liked it as it was, for now anyway.

I found it hard to keep the design simple and ended up taking it apart several times after over complicating it, but I got there in the end.

 

I’m surprised how much I like it. I wouldn’t normally make something in one colour - it’s all shades of blue (but does look black in parts in the photos.)

I noticed I made the branches short and stylised since it was somewhat pattern based to make the circle, but in reality they would have been longer and overlapping but I like the way it turned out, and might even go on to make a picture in the same theme.

I had actually started off with a completely different design idea for the table centre using colourful holly leaves that I made last year for a christmas project but didn’t finish the project at the time.

I do really like the holly leaves but I was umming and ahhing and couldn’t decide if I liked the layout or not, and remembered I had wanted to get the Q4 piece done, so I took them off and put them back in the pile for later consideration. Now, looking at the photos I really like the holly leaves a lot, so must return to that project in time for next Christmas!