Does anyone besides me have a body bag? Now before you alert the authorities, mine is all wool. I have legs, I have arms, I have heads! I'm sure some day I will need one of these parts.
In a perfect world, each piece I roll would come out exactly right. This however is not a perfect world, hence the body bag. It was a good idea, because I have on occasion dipped into the bag for the perfect leg or arm.
Creating soft sculptures is sort of a Frankenstein endeavor. Add some of this and a little bit of that and now you're getting somewhere. If all else fails, you can always tack on a few extra parts and call it an alien.
I have a thing with red, curly hair. So I had to create a doll to just showcase the hair. Had to be Irish of course because of the red hair. It also gave me an opportunity to use the Merino wool I just dyed for shadiing. It works great. Doesn't give them a clown like coloring. Like makeup, it shouldn't be noticed.
Meet my new baby, Bridey.
I can't tell you how much time I've spent trying to find the exact color of wool batt in Merino to add spot color to faces, etc. I wanted something very soft so it would look real. I finally gave up and realized I had to dye my own to get exactly what I wanted.
So, I went to the store and bought some Kool Aid, no sugar added, in a cherry red color. I put a half teaspoon into the water and added the white merino wool. When the water turned clear I rinsed the wool and, much to my surprise, had a vey bright red color. My dolls would look like they had a night out on the town if I used that color. Back to the drawing board.
Now clearly a half teaspoon was way too much, so for the next attempt I slowly dropped in a few grains of the Kool Aid. The water quickly turned a very light shade of pink and looked just about right. Dropped in the next batch of white Merino. After the water turned clear, I removed the wool and guess what! The exact shade I'm looking for. So the moral to that story is to go very slowly with the Kool Aid because, while you can add more, you can't take any out.
Does anyone have a life once they get bit by the felting bug? I often go to bed at night planning what color to use the next day or what type of clothes to make for my doll. Or if I should make a doll or an animal. I love baby animals so I usually head in that direction.
Well, I'm off to put some Jammies on a cute little red head.
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