Felting.

Today I spent a wonderful afternoon being taught how to make felted animals. It was being held at the home of one of my choir friends who was the Headteacher at one of the schools where I used to teach. (Not my last school.) Her house was at Loxhore, a hamlet not too far from Shirwell where our boys went to primary school. I would occasionally drive out to Loxhore either to the village hall for W.I. events or for the boys to visit friends who lived there, but hadn't been that way for at least 10 years. 

I wondered if being back out in the countryside would make me feel nostalgic for Dingles but surprisingly it didn't. Perhaps if we didn't have plans to move back to the country/coast I might have felt differently. The house was even nicer than I had guessed as it had been designed  my friend's brother-in-law to take advantage of the stunning views down the valley. 

One session had been held in the morning followed by lunch for all before six of us settled down to learn to make our little animals. It was a bring and share lunch and I enjoyed broccoli and stilton soup followed by focaccia bread and home-made pate  and the Rocky Road went down well. I think we all abandoned our post-Christmas diets for the day.

We began by being shown how to use our sharp felting needles to create basic shapes that might eventually look like the examples above. 

The actual process was quite therapeutic and at times the room drifted into silence as we stabbed away at the wool. Initially it was suggested that we might like to make a fox or a badger, either as a brooch or a stand up model but some of us went our merry way to make other animals. Lani made a fabulous purple spotted green dinosaur for her grandson and inspired by the picture on my coffee mug I tried to make a red squirrel. One of the morning group made a lovely hare. It was fun to do and each animal had its own character. As well as our models to take home and some extra wool we also kept the needles as from a H&S point of view (blood from the occasional stab wound) they couldn't be given to others to use. 

My squirrel got bigger and bigger as I worked so I'm going to try and go the other way and make a tiny rabbit or mouse with the wool I brought home. When I got home I added whiskers and sewed a mouth to Mr Tufty who has rather plump thighs.

I had planned to stop and take countryside photos on the way back but we spent so long chatting and stabbing that it was dark by the time I set off. I called in at the Co-Op to pick up some milk and got a few bargains as well including some blackberries to go on tomorrow morning's porridge.

I checked the packaging of yesterday's sushi and it was wasabi not chili that tasted so hot so I'll know to avoid that as well.