Needle felted monster thingys

In my scrap yarn stash I've had a baggie full of light worsted weight scraps  ( Mainstay ) from an inkle weaving project.. used a few bits here and there but didn't want to use it for stuffing or tie the ends together to add to my yarn ball... I swear I will get back to that some day 😁... as the pieces were fairly long and seamed like they could be more useful... how I had no clue... until 

 I came across a needle felting video about adding hair to a project.. she called it a monster... so cute..

 After seeing some super realistic looking needle felting, I did want to try adding hair to something, but I will admit the super realistic looking critters .... they kind of creep me out.... 

I personally prefer not so realistic looking little critters sitting on my shelf ..

 the talent and skill that go into these is just amazing and awe-inspiring.. I find it fascinating to watch... just not something I want to do at least not at this point.. but that monster oh yeah I had to try a few of those...

Started by brushing out all of the yarn scraps with a pet brush ..

 The fibers that were "carded" caught up in the brushes, kind of a light felting or matting... I replaced in the baggie to use as my core fiber... the main body filler.. the term they use is core wool so I suppose I could just call it core acrylic.. anyhow I set that aside to

 

proceed with using a hair straightening iron to smooth out all of the strands that had remained straight-ish a bit better, the process also adds a nice shine to it, although I did not straighten it too much as I wanted a bit of a wonky look.. still ended up on the smooth side once it got it on..

 Set that aside going back to the core stuff I rolled it nice and tight .. as tight as I could with it puffing out every where.. 

I had picked up a felting kit from the Dollar tree.. actually my son went into the Dollar tree and found them ... I was outside sitting in the car working on crochet watching his doggie.. he only came out with three so I sent him back in for a couple more.. I couldn't believe it... I had asked him to pick up one of the small crochet kits.. he didn't even realize he picked up a felting kit LOL

while I can't use the wool in it... 

Or at least shouldn't.. ( serious reaction and allergy to wool and lanolin )

 I will admit I'm kind of tempted to put on safety gear and try it just to see what the difference is.. maybe I could get away with trying some wet felting outside with a mask on and huge rubber gloves or something... 

Okay back to this project the kit came with three needles ( if I had to guess I would say 36, 38 and 40 triangular ) and this neat little foam pad to felt on.. just the right size for a small project like this.. it also had the wool needed in the colors called for, plus an eye pin and little cord like thingy with a jump ring and  lobster claw on the end that I have since learned can be used to hang things off of phones... and whatnot ... Side note looking things up when you don't know the name is a very long process.... I definitely needed to get a few of those especially after it took me so long to figure out what they were called LOL lanyard phone ring strap on Amazon if your wondering..

Anyhow where was I ... 

I made my core very firm as I knew I would be keeping my hair rows close together and the firmness would be necessary... plus I just like they feel of it... Yeah okay it is also very satisfying for some reason to stab yarn fibers thousands of times over and get a solid shape out of it... 

Added felted eyes

I cut the "hair" in two inch sections.. and put the rows almost on top of each other they were that close... I did have to stop and find some of the smaller scraps that I had used on other projects to finish up the top of the head as I had run through everything I had prepared just at the last couple of rows.. talk about yarn chicken ugh.. it's a good thing I had already decided I wanted the hair to stand up more on the top and was able to use some smaller pieces to fill it in, lesson learned you definitely need more yarn than you would think at least more than I thought...

Using a 40 gauge triangular needle for the vast majority of it, only in the beginning did I use a 38 triangular, so far in my limited experience I find the 40 triangular to work the best for me with or worsted weight acrylic fibers.

I used a eyebrow brush/comb that I had purchased from yep the Dollar tree to use with my amigurumi doll hair... to smooth it out a bit as I went along, this particular yarn was full of static and tended to be very fly away, so I was moistening my fingers with a light mist of water as needed .. this really helped speed things up which was kind of nice as this is a very long and sort of tedious process ... but so worth it ... it turned out so cute 

I worked in circles around the base/body until I came to the eyes, between the eyes I kept the lower half worked downwards and the top upwards, I wanted the hair on the top of the head to stand upward ( good thing as previously stated lol ) ... so I added a part in the center of the head and worked rows downward from there meeting up with the circular rows I had done prior.. 

Not exactly like the video monster.. more of a "thing" vibe going here.. flat out love them .. 

This one is made with Simply Soft yarn by Caron with a part down the middle .. pre hair trimming .. core if mixed scraps.. no ironing 

Also Simply Soft with no ironing, but the cord was Simply Soft.. took forever to felt.. or about a half hour longer.... being the first and last with of anything a silky yarn core.. actually was the first of the monster thingys .. which I am sure is pretty obvious LOL I think he's gorgeous so I'm keeping this one.. and that one above this.. 

 

Both Simply Soft with random scraps core, both ironed and styled differently ... each has it's own one of a kind look .. 

Yarn scraps for needle felting

I always have yarn scraps hanging around.. when I got my felting needles a couple of weeks ago 

I decided to use this gallon sized bag stuffed full to practice ... 

Okay over three weeks later I will admit I had no clue how much effort and time it would involve... 

I pulled colors as I needed them for whatever project I was working on.. some days I sorted colors out and just worked on brushing.. for hours at a time 

I got a couple of dollar store pet brushes.. around the end of week three they started losing some of the metal bristles .. but as many dozens and dozens of hours as I put them through hard brushing, I think they held up pretty well for the price..

 I had everything from nice super soft shiny to down right harsh scraps.. mostly in between stuff like Red Heart... 

In my experience Red Heart was much easier to brush out and quicker to felt then the smoother shinier Simply Soft scraps although they did make for some beautiful monster hair LOL ( post coming soon )

Red Heart before 

and after brushing 

I finally finished brushing the last of the scraps out last night after doing another marathon of six or seven hours straight.. ugh 

and I have a shopping bag full of baggies still left after dozens of smaller projects 

Side note 

I actually had to buy a box of sandwich baggies.. not something I do often .. I reuse them over and over again until they literally fall apart.. apparently it's been a few years as I could only find a few.. well I should be set for some time now ...... 
 

A few upcoming projects will be .....

I am going to try my hand at glitter eyeballs and polymer clay claws.. I just found some polymer clay at the dollar tree, small amounts in five or six different colors I think ... per pack just perfect size for doing some claws and possibly some beaks

As soon as I manage to de-scent my new pattern books enough to work with I'll start a few of these...

 Look at those hats on the Impkins... definitely looking forward to this... They are in a bag of dry rice .. slowly getting better... I could live without the added fragrance .. if it takes too much longer I am going to resort to taking photos of the pages LOL in the meantime I'm going to work on glitter eyes

Oh and the hairy monsters post 

Planning on mixing up some embroidery needle felting and beads also... 

Needle felting with acrylic yarn

Just over a week ago I came across the YouTube video on needle felting eyes on to amigurumi, they looked really impressive...

 the one thing I don't like about crocheted eyes is they tend to be a bit bulky and raised, safety eyes are not always a good choice and also can be too bulky on small dolls, embroidery eyes can be difficult to get to lay right  ..  which is especially noticeable on small dolls....

 these were nice and smooth, but being extremely allergic to wool even though I have wanted to try needle felting for ages I thought that was something I would never be able to do.. 

Being burned out on news but still needing something to run in the background while I was working on my latest project, I let a few more needle felting videos play... one mentioned using acrylic yarn... 

That one mention was enough to get me searching online to see if I could find any more information about this.. 

Information is actually pretty limited, most everything directs towards wool, there were enough little bits here and there to convince me it was doable, wet felting of course is not but dry needle felting is... 

My intention was to just get a cheapy set from Amazon and try making a few eyes.. I mentioned this to one of my sons while I was searching on Amazon, asked him what he thought about it...  his input was... to get a better set of needles with a variety of different needle types to see which would work better.. I'll admit it didn't take much to convince me as this is really something I wanted to do for a long time... as I had just sold a few patterns, my practice is to put a little bit back into my crafting every few items sold at least, it seemed like really good timing..

I was going to start with practicing eyes but decided to watch a video on basics and they recommended starting with shapes, first being a ball.. my son walks in and asked what I'm making I tell him I'm making a ball for practice.. he's like no really what's it going to be you don't ever just practice without making something, I laughed and said I only had the set for like an hour he couldn't expect need to actually be able to make anything with it.. 

well that was enough to get me thinking that instead of just making a round ball I should try something I had wanted to do, so I started with one mushroom and another... decided it needed some grass or ground or something to put it on, that needed something with it which turned out to be a bunny not sized to scale or anything just something I wanted to try using just scrap ends.. the ball is now a bush.. still haven't finished with that video ( photo at top ) 

That lead to making more small items... 

I have been working on key chains, charms and such as I like to have plenty of small, low cost items on my tables at markets and was running low..

Still using just scraps I made a few hearts.. 

Along the way I decided to try a landscape.. 

Definitely need to work on building up skills for landscapes lol... had no clue what I was doing but it was fun .. at that point I was going on over 30 hours of no sleep .. the big take away from that was you shouldn't play with super sharp needles when you're really tired... and maybe should plan things out a little bit better..

I did practice eyes... once so far lol ..