needle felting with Spellbinders

Der deutsche Text ist HIER.

Welcome to another "Exlore beyond" blogpost for my favourite die cut company Spellbinders. Some of my close friends know that I am a tailor too.  So exploring the possibilities of crafting tools always ends up in another hobby for me. Papercrafting meets sewing, crochet and history of crafts and fashion is woven into DIY projects.

To explore beyond means to bring it all together. Eliminate differences and find similarities. Todays project is coming from both worlds: Needlecraft and papercraft. I hope you like it. A list of all materials can be found on the bottom.

Years ago I discovered needle felting for my sewing projects. I loved the possibilities and how easy they are achieved. When I have went deeper into die cutting, I was keen to cut felt for various purposes. But my beloved woolen felt didn't cut properly with my Grand Calibur. I bought an Artisan Explorer and hoped to be able to cut woolfelt now. But still I wasn't able to cut it with crisp edges.

Then I found the new metal shim for the Artisan Explorer! This changed a lot for me. I can cut now all that stuff I never been able to cut: Plastic, metal and thick, woolen felt. Now that I can cut all the felt I can think of, I can go back to the needle felting and use this technique with my die cuts.

The process is pretty simple: First cut the felt - you have to make sure it was made with animal hair, artifical felt won't fuse with other fabrics - with the help of the metal shim. Then use your felting needles to fuse the fibres into any fabric. Because the needles will push the felt fibres into the fabric, the fabric fibres will be a little bit damaged. For example delicate chiffon will suffer a bit, but as a fibre artist this cannot scare me. Just keep in mind to choose the right fabric for your desired look.




For my hat I used loden fabric, that can be felted into so nicely. I made a pattern for a hat. Because I have such a big head I cannot buy hats or patterns, but making your own pattern is much more fun than just buy one, right? After I sewed the hat I started felting. To show how it's done, I made a video for your convenience.

Please note that I also felted some sleeves for the winter. Because I cannot put my felting mat into the sleeves I had to felt them BEFORE I sewed them together.

For the hat I felted 3 poinsettias and added some white beads to make them look more real.





The hat will be my winter hat of 2013. Because of a bad left ear I cannot leave the house without a hat or cap during cold weather. But I am lucky... people say a hat suits me. It has become my second nature and you barely ever see me without a hat.

And what can be better than a hat with my very own signature? I hope you like my idea.

And here is the video, don't forget to subscribe and thumbs up in case you find it useful.

List of materials (hover for links):

Layered Poinsetta Spellbinders

metal shim for the Artisan Explorer

wool felt, white pearls, woolen loden fabric
Clover needle felting tools