Experimentation - Needle Felting

After having the worst migraine at college, I took a break from doing sheet work and did something a little easier on the eyes - needle felting! Basing it on my final major project, I created a bacterial petri dish by using different coloured wool and even adding some other materials such as organza and angelina fibers.
I started off by collecting the equipment I needed, These are; Wool, A needle felting sponge - a normal sponge can not be used, a sponge made for needle felting is more dense. A needle felting needle, or multiple if your going to use a larger handle which holds four needles, needle holders. 
Once I had gathered everything I needed I started by getting some wool, not a large amount, but enough to roll into a ball the size of a large grape, I then started to poke my wool with the needle I have, going into the sponge whilst doing this. This bonds all the fibers together creating a shape rather than a flat piece of wool. Once I had done that bit I then used other colour wools to add onto the shape I had already made, but adding these onto the sides to create a flat circle shape that would fit into a petri dish. 


This is what my my felting looked like before I added the angelina fibers, as you can see I have added small circles on the top of the base I made and I also added some orange and blue organza. I was happy with what I had created at this point, although my colour scheme is holographic and bacterial petri dishes usually have growths coming out of them so I decided to add angelina fibers, to do this I needle felted them into the top of my felting and then covered my felting with paper, I then used an iron on top of the paper the heat bonds the fibers together, after this I then needle felted it again to make sure it was bonded in my creation. I then used my fingers to pull some fibers out a little bit so it looks like a growth.


This is the final outcome of my needle felting. It took me about an hour and half, I think I could do it in a faster time as this time I was just experimenting. I am extremely happy with the outcome and can not wait to do more!

Thankyou for reading.

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