Words and Step-out Photos by Candace Brower
All other photography by Cedric Smith
Felting 101 for sure! If you’re a super felter look away. If you just want to have some fun with a no calorie berry…felt on!
Fast Felted Strawberries
(a no calorie dessert)
Ingredients:
Roving wool (I used pink, green, and cream)
Felting needle
Felting surface/Styrofoam block (Make sure it’s a couple inches thick so you don’t poke your legs or the surface you are felting on…I learned the hard way!)
Directions:
Step One:
Prep your wool. Tear or cut (we tear) a piece of the roving wool off in the size that you want for your strawberry. A good way to determine how big it will be at the end of your felting journey is to squeeze it together in your hand. The bigger piece you tear the bigger the strawberry.
Step Two:
Roll the piece of wool into a ball, tucking in all the loose ends.
Step Three:
Place the ball on your felting surface and start poking and poking and stabbing until it begins to shape into a smooth, round ball. Make sure to keep your fingers clear. Felting needles are sharp!
Step Four:
Now that you have a round ball concentrate your stabbing to one of the ends and start forming it into the bottom of a strawberry. The more you stab the more impacted the wool becomes.
Step Five:
Flatten out the top of the strawberry by poking it flat with your needle!
Step Six:
Tear off a piece of your green roving wool for the leaves and stem of the strawberry. Poke onto the top to attach. Gently pull the green wool over the top of the strawberry (it should look like a scalloped edge) and attach with your felting needle. Make sure to poke along every edge of the green.
Step Seven:
Tear off a tiny piece of the green roving wool and roll into a stem. Stab it a little bit on your mat before placing it in the middle of your strawberry and then, you guessed it, stab to attach.
Step Eight:
Tear off TEENY TINY pieces of your seed color (smaller than you think!) and roll into a tiny ball. Being SUPER careful, attach the seeds to your strawberry by gingerly poking with the needle (make sure not to stab the seeds too hard, if you do they will most likely go too far into the strawberry). Repeat this step until the strawberry has all of its seeds!
Check out this fun video I did with my boss, Libbie Summers, for more visual aids and inspiration!
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