Made Somewhere Between Sunday And Monday...

This weekend my family and I attended Carolina Fiber Festival.  It was held at the Raleigh Fairgrounds along with NC Festival so it was somewhat of an overwhelming event.  We didn't expect it to be as large as it was and didn't take our stroller the first trip there and didn't stay as long as we had planned (2.5 year olds don't like to walk long distances and get heavy fast...).. nor did I get a chance to really look through the beautiful yarn for sale.  Imagine tons of carnival games and rides....

... and thankfully some free healthy fun for little ones!

Sat night I pulled out a little kit I had purchased a few months back and I was immediately hooked.  I knew I didn't want to stick to just using kits... To be honest they're kind of cheesy... and aren't exactly all needle-felting.  The kit I have requires additional colors to be added by sewing threads over the felting. 

Needlefelted bee that still needs yellow accent threads sewn on.

We decided to go back on Sunday and I was sucked back into the same section of felting fibers.  The yarns throughout the same ranged from $25-95+ so it was all a bit out of my budget range.  The roving however was much more reasonably priced than what I'm used to seeing in chain craft stores.  So on Sun while holding large ziplock bags of 9 assorted colors in large chunks for $15 I caved... I chose 2 instead of the 4 I was drooling over and walked up to the person selling the fibers.  I asked a few questions (I'm always concerned with the treatment of the animals/where the fibers come from, what they're dyed with etc.) and preceded to pay for the roving.  I would have preferred to find naturally dyed fibers but I decided to settle for what I could afford!  I'm a beginner needle-felter anyway.. there's a chance I'm going to felt $30 worth of wool roving into a giant mess, right?

 My first attempt at a little creature turned out best of all.  Unfortunately I was unable to get a clear shot of it (the lighting stinks in here)... It still needs a face added but I was too sleepy by the time I got to that stage to deal with any more intricate decorations.  Each tiny swirl on the shell was done with an almost thread sized piece of roving and took longer than the entire turtle.  I am now wishing I had done a dark shell with light colored swirls.  

Turtle

My second creature didn't turn out quite as well but then again it was probably getting very, very late at that point.  I think it will be more clear that this little guy is a frog when he has a pair of eyes and a mouth and not a green cat as my husband thought when I first showed it to him.

Frog

I unfortunately realized the bags I bought did not include yellow or orange.. two colors I need to make a little goldfish and a bee for my little guy.  Thankfully I had a golden brown to create the belly of the turtle.

I'd like to say there is plenty of time for more needlefelting this week but I've fallen behind on my Knit for Japan projects.  I finished the hat (all but sewing up the top and adding a pom-pom) and it DOES fit an adult size head!  I also finished a matching scarf (all but weaving in the ends) and started a second scarf.  At minimum I will have those three things finished in time but I would like to at least make a handful of washcloths to send also.