Felting with Mom and my friends

I had only felted once before. I took a felting class with Rita Blocksom. What fun was that!! But such hard work - Phew!! We started with a base of thin wool batt and then added as many colors of roving as we wanted, along with strands of Angelina fibers and other fibers (non-wool). Then we rolled it between layers of tulle, along with hot, soapy water. We just beat it and rolled it one way and then another and beat it some more. Fantastic way to get your frustrations out!! Rita also gave us small pieces of wool batt that we rolled very tightly and beat the same way to make a narrow cylinder that was then cut in slices to make "buttons" for embellishments or, if added prior to felting, could actually become part of the felt piece.

Mom and I layering wool roving, Angelina fibers, etc onto our piece of felting.

 This is my finished piece after felting. I have also added stitching, beads, and more fibers to embellish my felting to create a 2" felted box. I found a bag of worry dolls from Guatemala that someone had given me and stitched a few worry dolls to the sides. My daughter loved to play with these when she was little. So they remind me of her whenever I see them.  I've added a running stitch in white pearl cotton thread to outline my box. The box looks like a "t" when cut out.

Felted piece with added embellishments of wool roving, fibers, beads, worry dolls,
and stitching.  Running stitch in white pearl cotton outlines the box.

Felt box is cut-out on running stitch of  white pearl cotton .

I stitched the sides of the box using a buttonhole stitch in purple pearl cotton.  Each side looks like it's own piece of art with a variety of colors, embroidery stitches, handmade beads, and store-bought beads, along with the worry dolls. 

Back-side of felt box.

Side of felt box

The box is closed with a small pony-tail holder stitched to the inside of the lid. It hooks around a handmade bead on the front of the box. The handmade bead is made of gold lame fabric wrapped around a pencil or chopstick. Various colors of pearl cotton are wrapped around the lame to add color. A bead is strung through pearl cotton before it's wrapped around the lame to add more dimension to the bead.

Inside of box holding more worry dolls.