Name Tag Design

When you wake up early in the morning and the house is quiet because it's too early for anyone to get up, what crosses your mind? Well, for me this morning it was my quilt guild name tag. Weird, eh? I don't know why I thought of that but the point is that I did.

I had a really cute name tag at one point.  I had made it out of fabric in yellow and black. But for the life of me I can't find it. I've looked high. I've looked low. No luck. So I need a new one. 

The next place my mind started to go was to a class I'd just taken on needle felting. I've written a post on felting before, but finally I had the opportunity to take a class and learn some new ideas.

One of the things we did was use wool roving. These fibers are used to make actual wool felt. Here's  what it looks like:

All you need to do is unwind a little and then gently pull it apart.

 Next, layer it three or four times; vertical, horizontal, vertical, horizontal. Now it's ready to felt. I alternated blue and green.

The needles of the felting tool are barbed so it pulls actual bits of the wool up and down through the piece. That's what causes it to become sturdy and felt. You can also felt without a machine. You just need a felting punch tool which contains the needles and a punch mat. It can provide the same end product as the machine punch tool, but it will take quite a bit longer to complete a project.

In class we learned to use a wooden skewer to direct the loose bits on the edges up under the needles. Not only does it keep fingers away from the nasty needles, but if the skewer get's  nicked, you're less likely to break a needle than you would be if a metal tool was used. 

So the needles go up and down; condensing the fibers. Then flip it over, felt it some more. Flip, felt, flip, felt etc. etc. etc.

  Here's the final piece:

Next I cut it into a shape, embellish a bit, add my name, and voila! a new name tag. The process doesn't really take a lot of time and it's really a fun break from sewing with thread.

Sure hope I don't lose this one!