Fall colors in dry felting | Designs by Heidi

Fall, and all the colors! And I’m excited to start machine felting again, and crocheting, and knitting, and sewing with wool, and, and……the list keeps growing. Thank you for stopping by today. I mentioned machine felting. There are two kind of felting: wet (like what happens to your favorite sweater being put in the washer AND dryer) felting, and dry felting. You can do dry felting by hand (quite tiring if large areas need to be covered) or use a machine like mine in the picture below.

There are 5 needles on my mine, but they have no eyes, so there is nothing to thread, just hit the gas and watch the magic happen (the yarn is forced into the background piece by the up and down motion of the needles). Isn’t the sweater (size 4) below just the cutest little thing. Surprise! It’s so colorful.

I walk away for just a minute and look what happens! Silly kitty.

Choosing the yarn is always the best part! I’m always on the hunt for unusual yarns. One skein will last a very long time.

So many choices but I narrowed it down to this one.

And SURPRISE! It’s circles AGAIN! Sheesh, I’ve got to get out of the circle rut I’m in. Yes, I’m always goin’ round in circles, ha, ha… But look at what texture and movement I get from my circles.

Only Heidi would think to put her Free-form Circles pillows in the same picture as her little girls sweater. Don’t forget, Modern Patchwork this issue, Fall 2016, will show you how to make these AMAZING PILLOWS!

I sprinkled circles all around the bottom of this sweater.

Since I’m on the subject of color, I visited PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival) in Santa Clara, CA and took pictures of EVERYTHING that interested me until my camera battery died. Below is a fun contemporary quilt that is really has a joy of color and design to it.

I love the use of black and white stripes for accents, just like I use in many of my Art to Wear patterns. Check them out at Craftsy.com/sewing patterns/Designs by Heidi (easier to hit the Craftsy icon at the bottom). And check out her quilting details below. I’m gonna get to my new Sweet Sixteen THIS weekend for sure (how long have I been saying that?).