Hello from a total newbie ^_^

[lam]

Hi,

This is Lam here from Little Rock, Arkansas. Until two weeks ago I had never heard of felting. Then we took our daughter to Michigan for school, and in a farmer’s market I saw a wonderful lady selling her creations. OMG! She had a whole rack of vests and dresses that were simply gorgeous. They were not sewn, had texture I’d never seen, and most importantly the fabric changed from wool to silk and to wool again. For the life of me I could not figure out how she got the silk in the wool, or the wool in the silk. Then I read the description and I thought, “what the heck is nano felting? That sounds high tech...” ^_<

Needless to say that was love at first sight. For the last two week I have been thinking of nothing else but felting. I read and search and watched YouTube tutorials, and don’t ask me how much money i’ve spent on felting supplies already. (With two kids in college I am really stretching it.) But when I finally got my basic supply in and made my first test piece, it was all worth it.

I have a hard time finding classes nearby. I am desperate to connect with other felters, but this doesn’t seem like a popular hobby around here. Thank goodness there is this wonderful forum with so many experienced and talented felters here. I am so excited by the endless possibilities that felting can create, but the felting process itself can present many challenges. It is great to have moral support from those who share the same love.

I am so excited to be here. It’s so nice to meet y’all. You’ll be seeing me around a lot because I have a million questions and run into a billion problems each day (yes, i’ve been felting every day for a week). Thank you in advance for all your help! ^_^


Happy felting,
Lam

[lyn]

Hello Lam and welcome to the forum - you sound very excited and you're obviously enjoying your felting!

[tracey]

Hello Lam, glad you have joined us, welcome! It is very addictive. Please ask your questions and post any pictures of your work. We were all beginners once.

[MTRuth]

Welcome Lam! Feel free to ask questions, share your work and join in the conversations. There's a lot of information here if you go back through past threads you can learn a lot from others questions too.

Isn't it magical when suddenly a pile of fiber becomes a piece of felt?

[lindsay]

Hello Lam. It’s great that you’ve found the forum and are full of the joys of felting. As you’re obviously a ‘connecting’ kind of person, you’ve definitely come to the right place. Do post some pictures of what you’ve done so far & bring on the questions!

[chinsky]

Hi It's great that you're here. I am waiting for your first felted work ;D

[Pandagirl]

Welcome Lam! We have a beginners wet felting online class If you can’t find something local.
feltingandfiberstudio.com/classes/wet-felting-for-beginners-online-course/

It’s a work at your own pace class.

Feel free to ask questions and post pictures on the forum in the appropriate section when you get started.
Enjoy your new Felting journey!

[lam]

Hi ^o^

Thank you lyn, Tracey, MTRuth, linsay, Chomsky’s and Pandagirl for the warm welcomes here. I feel quite at home already. Here are a couple of thinks i’ve Done so far. Mostly i’ve Been working on test pieces to play with different materials. But I decided this one little cobweb felt to cheesecloth is actually long enough to be a neckwarmer, so that’s what it will be. i61.photobucket.com/albums/h64/Lam_Jasmine_Bauman/F10475AD-D8ED-467C-A643-7CFC9DBB8E74_zpsw5kplodu.jpeg

And since I am encouraged by actually making something usable I decided to make a real scarf. Oh, well, let’s say that I overestimated myself and underestimated the project. It’s a cobweb scarf (again) that took me 6 hours (stayed up till 4:30), and it turned out incredibly sloppy. Well, I guess I’ll still wear it. i61.photobucket.com/albums/h64/Lam_Jasmine_Bauman/BBBE469C-27C1-4975-BD4C-1A0FAADDF971_zpsdqchlkrr.jpeg

Anyway, MTRuth is right that it is magical to have a pile of fiber suddenly turning into felt. The sense of satisfaction when it comes together is like nothing else.

Thank you Pandagirl for suggesting the wet felting beginners class. It looks really good. I’m going to sign up right now.

Peace everyone!

Lam

[lyn]

Lam - your rose scarf is very pretty - love the way you've done the ends! Are you able to use the table tennis table for felting or only display?

Your neckwarmer is lovely and I think they do a better job sealing the gap between neck and coat collar than regular scarves.

[Pandagirl]

Lam, the scarf and neck warmer are beautiful. Great work for a first time!

[lam]

Pandagirl and lyn, thank you so much for the encouragement. There is so much to learn! I have all these ideas in my head and don’t have the skill and knowledge to execute them yet. Hopefully that will come with practice.

lyn, yes I use the ping pong table for felting. It is perfect for it. It is actually my son’s table, and he is quite upset. So, I am only to use it when he is not, and I have to keep it in mint condition, and clear everything off of it after each felting session, ie no leaving layout on table overnight. *sigh*

[tracey]

Lovely pieces Lam, well done you!

[Pandagirl]

Lam, I use a fold down buffet table with plastic tubing on the legs to bring the height up to a comfortable level. Perhaps you can find a nook somewhere in your home where you can set up and not worry. I know a lot of our filters have to share a table of some sort so you’re not alone. I’m fortunate to have the extra space.

[Shepherdess]

Welcome to the forum and the addiction. As everyone has said ask questions and poke about in older posts too. the search works quite well. Don't be afraid to comment on an old post and a question. the scarves look great and your flower additions are lovely. if you finish and you think its not felted enough just wet it down again and so some more.

[lindsay]

The pieces look great. I particularly like the neck warmer - it reminds me of pressed leaves.

I think doing test pieces is a good way to approach things. I’ve been felting for a while now but before I joined the forum I tended to throw myself into big and ambitious pieces without doing small samples. I thought I was too impatient to bother but I’ve learned that it actually saves a lot of time and you can do a small sample, or even two alongside each other, very quickly - impatience satisfied! It also saves a lot of time, wool and disappointment when you’ve spent hours making something that hasn’t quite worked as you wanted.

Happy felting. I look forward to seeing many more fine works very soon.....