Having discovered the joys of needle-felting, I was keen to have a go at its soggier, less pointy cousin, Wet Felting.

The online beginners' guides that I found tended toward the make-your-own-scarf end of felting, which, while tempting, was a bit more than I wanted to get into on a first go round. Quite apart from the sheer quantity of felt required, I figured that the rest of the household would be less than thrilled by my filling the bath with wool.

Luckily, the ever-crafty Jane Cameron found Wee Folk Art's guide to making wet felted wool cookie cutter ornaments, and was willing to trade felting supplies for my photographing her silk scarves.

We substituted the wooden skewers for metal forks (working on the principle that extra pointy bits equals faster felting), and the 'patting them dry with a towel' with 'wrapping them in a towel and stomping on them'.
How much the extra violence speeded up the whole process, I couldn't say, but it certainly added to the entertainment factor.

And here, following an hour or so of beading, is the finished item:

(The antennae are those little sticks that one uses for making dangly earrings. Alas, one of them got lost somewhere in the bowels of my book pile about ten minutes ago.)

I haven't quite decided whether I'm brave enough to wear it as a brooch yet - I've certainly lost a lot of other nice things to inadequate brooch pin tenacity - but the vague plan has always been to pin it to my sun hat for festivals and other fancy occasions.

We shall see...

Coming eventually to SqueeBlog: Fun with marzipan, with special reference to a website that should be in everyone's bookmarks.