One day, I realized that I had never made a horse. And then I remembered that my mother-in-law’s favorite animal is a horse. So for Christmas last year, I needle felted her a little horse ornament. It has a loop of wire at the withers so it can hang on the Christmas tree.
It was a lot of fun making this little guy. I researched a lot of other needle felters’ work to get inspiration.
Seeing these lovely horses, each with their own unique personalities, really gets my creative juices going! I’ll definitely make more felted horses over the coming years.
What other artists’ work has inspired you in your life? Let me know in the comments.
At the end of January 2017, I married my biggest cheerleader, Nick. He is the love of my life. He’s also my favorite art subject.
My Nick, oil pastel
This was the most fun I’d ever had making a portrait! It doesn’t quite capture his magic, but even just that tiny bit there in the pastel strokes makes me gaze and gaze at it… Attempting to capture him is the labor of love I am going to relish for the rest of my life! Expect to see more of this guy around here. ^_^
I knew our wedding would be unique. We chose snails and succulents as our theme and it was even more otherworldly than I could have imagined! My family and friends helped tremendously to pull off the most beautifully breath-taking wedding I’ve ever seen. Shout out to my incredibly talented and dear friend, Valkyrie Johnson, who made the gorgeous bouquets and boutonnieres.
Photo by Pamela Palma
All my wonderful bridesmaids helped make colorful paper snails for table decorations. Both my mother and my mother-in-law made cakes. My mother also made my dress, which was so perfectly “me” it’s hard to believe it wasn’t done with fairy magic.
Nick’s music, the first song he ever wrote for me, accompanied me down the aisle. Absolute magic. You can listen to the song by clicking on the title here: A Golden Spiral.
Not only was our wedding beautiful, it was unique and just a bit quirky. The perfect blend of elegance and oddity.
I made personalized snonkeys to go on the scrumptious purple cake my mother baked and which my friend, Priscilla, decorated with modeling chocolate succulents (she’s amazing! She seriously should consider a profession in cake decorating).
Straights’ Snonkey Cake Topper, 2017
I made the invitations myself and had them printed at moo.com as postcards (I highly recommend their printing services). I loved using postcards because I could make a full drawing on the back in addition to the smaller images on the front next to the invitation text.
I drew each image with crayons, scanned them, then made up the designs in Photoshop.
Snail and Succulent Wedding Invitations, Crayola crayons 2017
Here’s a closeup where you can see that funny crayon texture:
Snail and Succulent Wedding Invitations – Detail
And I was able to print a custom sticker at moo.com that sealed the envelopes!
Snail Succulent Sticker, Crayola crayons 2017
After the wedding, I made thank you postcards to continue the theme. Again, I used crayons and had them printed at moo.com
Snail and Succulent Thank You postcards, Crayola crayons 2017
I would like to again thank everyone who helped make our wedding so beautiful. It was a perfect day and I cherish the memories that flood back every time I think of it. Thank you!
And a thank you to anyone reading this. I am so grateful to share all these wonderful things with you! My art is the joy of my life and using it to celebrate the day I united with the man I love is truly blissful.
A while back I was commissioned to make another mother and calf Malayan tapir pair. I love making these. The majestic shape of the mother is hard to capture in my felting somehow… I think it might be the unusual tapir face and how it flows into the neck and shoulders. The patterns on the baby are definitely a challenge too, but one I delight in taking on!
I love these animals. The long mobile nose is the cutest! Have you ever heard a tapir chirp? This is what it sounds like. Did you know they have three toes on their back feet, but four on the front feet? There are a couple different varieties of tapirs, including the Mountain Tapir, which has long fur — such a fuzzy guy! One of my goals in life is to needle felt all species of tapir.
I love anteaters. I love their long snouts and their impressive claws and their strange color patterns — that bright stripe along the shoulder of the giant anteater! Amazing! Every anteater is fascinating in its own way, but the tamandua anteaters are especially dear to my heart because of that long semi-prehensile tail. There are two anteaters in the tamandua genus, the northern and the southern tamandua. The northern tamandua has a distinctive V-neck color pattern, almost like they’re wearing sweater vests, while the southern tamandua is much lighter in coloring and some just have a hint of the V pattern.
Have you ever wondered how an anteater’s front feet differ from their back feet? What their grooming routine is like? How much they sleep? What their poo looks like? You can find the answers (with pictures!) at Tamandua World.
Have you guessed the subject of my next project? Yup, I’m working on needle felting an anteater… It’s not like a real tamandua (yet discovered anyway!) but it’s very much inspired by the northern tamandua. I’m embellishing my anteater by felting elaborate patterns into the fur in fantastical colors.
Here are some in-progress photos.
More photos to follow! Check back for the finished anteater sometime soon!
My world changed the first time I saw it. I had always been fond of monkeys for their human-like faces, prehensile tails, and wondrously dexterous hands. Other primates were fascinating too: the thrilling grace of a gibbon is nearly unmatched in the natural world and the wise expression of an orangutan goes straight to the soul. But when I saw the face of a slow loris, my heart was stolen.
Not only are they stunningly adorable, they are amazing. AMAZING. They are so unique it is sometimes hard to believe they’re real. They have a toxic gland under their arms which they lick and use as venom. They have special backbones that allow them to bend at incredible angles. They have a tooth-comb that they use to groom themselves. They’re nocturnal and can climb swiftly and nearly silently through the trees.
Unfortunately, there is a downside to being cute and fantastic: these animals are endangered. Deforestation and wildlife trade, as pets or for traditional medicinal uses, are threatening the existence of this amazing creature.
After falling in love with the slow loris, I created a new snonkey (snail-monkey), the Lorisnail. Here is the needle felted Lorisnail, who will appear in a story of mine someday:
Needle felted Lorisnail
The concept is still taking form in my mind… I will share more about it in another post.
Meanwhile, I was still burning with passion for the precious loris, little fireface, so I felted a loris:
Needle felted lorisNeedle felted loris (closeup)
This little one will go up in my etsy shop (FamiliarOddlings.etsy.com) on September 16th, the start of Slow Loris Awareness Week. It will be $150 USD, $50 of which will go to The Little Fireface Project to help the loris.
Okay, a long overdue post, heh. Sorry about that. Now for what you’ve all been waiting for…. How I started needle felting! And what is it, anyway?
I first discovered needle felting while browsing the fantastical and often fabulous art on Elfwood (www.elfwood.com) a couple years ago. This one artist, Amanda Edlund from Sweden, made extremely appealing bipedal creatures with amazing color patterns. They had wonderful ears and great expressions. Here is one, The Blue Creature!
In short, I fell in love with her creatures and I desperately wanted to know what this “felting” was! I sent her a few notes and she kindly explained what needle felting was and how to build the armature underneath so the creatures would be pose-able.
Here are the two pictures she was generous enough to share with me:
Wire armature wrapped with woolAdding the layer of dyed wool along with the details
So what is needle felting? It is the art of poking wool into shape! Here’s the official definition: Needle felting is a popular fiber arts craft conducted without the use of water. The artist uses special barbed felting needles from industrial felting machines to sculpt wool fiber. The barbs catch the scales on the fiber and push them through the layers of wool, tangling and binding the fibers together, much like the wet felting process. Fine details can be achieved using this technique, and it is popular for both 2D and 3D felted work.
My first felted creature was Glip.
My first needle felted creation
As you can see, he was heavily inspired by Amanda’s work. I took some pipe cleaners and twisted them into an armature over which I wrapped undyed wool to make a padded base — the “stuffing” if you will. Then I needle felted the dyed wool over the top, poking myself several times in the process. I discovered how difficult it was to make the fingers slender and delicate! Also, how you really should use multiple layers of the dyed wool to build up stability and a deep color. It was a wonderful learning experience!
Some time later, I fixated on making a snonkey (see previous post) with the needle felting technique. After considering it a for a while, I decided to felt the body but let the shell be an actual shell. I love shells and the hard smooth texture of a real snail shell can’t be beat! But the trouble was finding the right sized shell. Up until that point I had been using (to make other works of art) the small garden variety snail shells I found lying around my neighborhood, abandoned by the local snails. Then my family came home one day from grocery shopping with a bag of escargot shells! They were the perfect size. I made a pipe cleaner armature, felted wool over it, then glued an escargot shell on the back.
The first felted snonkey
So that’s how I started needle felting. Next time I’ll tell you about the Lorisnail, a special kind of snonkey. Take care, everyone! Thank you for reading!
Familiar Oddlings 
