Needle Felted Friends

 To the left are the pieces of a needle felted doll.  The body parts are all loosely felted to a "cubit" standard. (Check out this post about human proportions by a cast bronze artist, David Lemon.  The cubit is the length from the elbow to the tip of the fingers.  In adults, it is roughly 18".  The human body is about four cubits tall.  I've learned that I'm not so good at creating felt creations with the cubit standard!)

 The pieces get felted together--leg pieces together; arm pieces together.  Then they are attached to the body and clothed.  This piecing technique comes from Ruth Lane's The Complete Photo Guide to Felting.  The upper leg and lower leg are stacked one on top of each other and felted just enough to hold them together.  Then the leg is wrapped in more felt to help hold the pieces together, but maintain flexibility.  In the case of the legs, I used the brown alpaca fibers to do the wrapping and made the pants at the same time.

 After all the pieces were attached, including the head, my creation posed with another felted face--a star.

Here the star and an unfinished "weeble" (anyone remember the "weebles wobble, but they don't fall down" toys?) take a break.   I wonder what they've been saying to each other.  :)