BARBED WIRE

NEEDLEFELT PRELIMS.

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

dyed wool roving, wool locks, recycled wet felted pieces leftovers, & handspun yarns

Before I show off the incredible felt 3-D structures these kids made recently,

I want to show their sweet little experiments in needlefelting.

If you've never tried the technique,

you start off with soft wool roving in various colors

and you punch threw it to tangle & dry felt it with a very sharp multi-barbed needle.

It's super fun & addicting but a bit scary.

Fortunately nobody was injured this year  :)

Here are all 8 of their prelims.

Senior William Kim

Senior Liana Chie

Senior Antoniette Jabat

Senior Hazel Cruz

Junior Shreya Sheth

Senior Kristine Luong

Junior Jacqueline Yu

Senior Amber Wu

The students not only used wool roving but handspun yarns, wool locks & wet felted leftovers

for a variety of textures.

WHAT ARE THEY UP TO NOW???

FELTED VESSELS

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

dyed roving, bouncy balls, hot soapy water & elbow grease

They loved this assignment...

wrapping their bouncy balls from the grocery store with layers and layers of splayed colored rovings.

And then felting them up with the hot soapy water.

Here is senior Kaili Hamada proudly displaying her felted ball.

Once partially felted they cut a small opening and continue to work the inside to shrink, shape and stiffen it.

Then they've got to decide what to build.

Maybe hats?

Too cute!!!

:)

Maybe not.

LOL

While they are deciding,

I show them a bit of dry needle felting for embellishment possibilities.

Above are senior Bianca Tolentino's practice pieces,

below is Kaili's practice sun motif.

And senior Daphne Chiang's fishy.

So sweet.

I also show them coil basketry with the lazy and figure eight stitches

because I'm requiring them to find a way to incorporate it into their vessels.

Above we see Daphne's prelim. coiled basketry disk.

Love how she mounted it for display.

And now onto the finished works.

Kaili was inspired by last year's  Advanced 3-D student Karisma Dev,

who built a hanging lamp.

Kaili's jelly fish light was one of the stars of the Open House Show.

Magical when it was lit.

Notice how she incorporated her coiled basketry

 and needle felt designs into the surface for visual interest.

She also beaded onto the surface for a bit of sparkle.

LOVE!

Daphne knocked it out of the park with something completely different,

a desert landscape.

Her basketry element is the coiled base it stands on, 

and her needle felt designs the cactus and sun.

I also really like how she cut away part of the felt layers on the side

 to expose her other colored rovings underneath.

And lastly Bianca has really cut open and exposed her inner layers to create this lovely floral piece.

She embellished with sparkly copper thread,

and lots of french knots in the center.

Needle Felting Prelims. - Student Work

Aren't these gorgeous? And they are just my 2nd year 3-d kid's preliminaries to learn how to control the felting needle. Some of the felt pieces were cut from recycled hand felted pieces made the year before. Then others, like the flower petals above, were formed and needled felted from dyed wool rovings. The students were also required to review their beading skills acquired in the beginning class and sew down some seed and bugle beads. The colors that junior Nandi Best used in the work above and below, are so sensory. I just love everything she does.

In the bracelet above and below senior Kelsea Lee needle felted a fabulous design. I was drooling over her piece so she gave it to me as an early Xmas present. I wear it almost every day. Thank you Kelsea!!

Above senior Hilary Chan did this adorable key chain.

And starting with the pix above, these were buried in my picture file and I'd forgotten to blog them last school year. So I'm going to try to remember who did what. The sweet flower bracelet was made by last year's senior Alma Gudino. And I'm pretty sure the cute whale was done by then senior Christie Connors. And the bottom bracelet was done by alum Trisha Shah.

The little love heart above was completed by this year senior Angeline Tran last year, and the 2 cats were produced by alum Jullian Kuo, and then the bottom flower was done last year by this year senior Olivia Hill. And last but not least, the fabulous creature below was playfully put together by then senior Nicholas Francisco.