Needle Felting & Embellishing

Am having a ball with the new needle felting embellisher machine. At the last moment, I chose the Huskystar ER10 embellisher by Viking. Functionally, I couldn't find a substantial difference between it and the Babylock embellisher, but I liked the case style a bit better and the price was perfect...$249.00 on sale! I was able to bring it home and immediately start playing with it. Very little to learn. The instruction booklet is ridiculously simple.

Here's a little seascape I started with using some pencil roving and novelty yarn scraps I had laying around (I save everything - all the little bits and pieces I cut off). I started with a base square of green wool felt approx. 10x10" square. It's a somewhat crude landscape since I was just "winging it" - in future I would do a pre-drawing in chalk and pay a bit more attention to composition and color. I'm really excited by the possibilities, however. I've long been a painter and it was fun "painting" with wool as a new medium.


The second project was embellishing a felted handbag. This project is an "upcycled" wool sweater that will become a tote style handbag. I'd been tossing around the idea of adding select silk flowers as embellishments and the Huskystar machine did a splendid job of attaching those flowers as well as creating some nice flower abstracts. I used some scraps of variegated fuschia pink novelty yarn for those.

The embellisher needles did a fine job of securing the large flower, but for extra holding power I used some black/brown novelty yarn as a center. I attached the small pink and white flowers with embroidered French knots. The design is quite secure and I should have no worries about anything coming loose with daily use of this bag. I'm very pleased with the way this is turning out and so, so simple. I'll post a photo of the bag when it's finished.

The new art market season begins the end of May. The embellisher is going to help me add a whole new dimension to this season's creations.