Free Form Felting with Wool Roving Using Machine Embroidery

I love the cushion top I made yesterday. The machine-embroidered felted flowers are so pretty, and I can’t wait to work with more of the UNIQUE Craft roving today! I’ll share my second project first, and then I’ll show you how I finished off the cushion. My second project is to emulate free-form felting using machine embroidery. Using the Husqvarna VIKING Embroidery Felt Set. I’ll be “stitching” a tight overall pattern on the embroidery machine to do the felting,

Before I begin today’s project, I want to note that I have never attempted this technique before. That means there’s plenty of room to experiment, and that’s how I learn, so I’m excited.

I happened to find a 5″ square shadow box in my frame stash (we are NOT going there), and I thought it would be great to make something to fit in the shadow box. While I had visions of creating an elaborate landscape, I opted instead for a simple flower to test the technique.

Step one was to sort through the amazing colors of the UNIQUE Craft roving and pick colors for my flower.

Here’s my shadow box, but you could use any frame to insert the felted piece, stitch it onto a tote bag, use it as an insert in a fidget quilt, add it to a wall hanging, attach it to the side of a zippered pouch, or in many other projects.

I hooped my fabric into a metal hoop with a piece of Stitch n Tear stabilizer behind it. It was then easy to layer the roving on the hoop. Alternatively, I could have layered the roving and then placed it on the hoop. As I did yesterday, I cut small lengths of roving off the skein and laid it out in thin layers. I started with blue as the background for the flower.

I chose denim as my base layer because it was blue, forgetting that it can be stretchy due to its bias weave. Next time, I’ll simply use a water-soluble stabilizer in the hoop.

My design needs to be five inches square to fit in the frame, so I laid out the base layer (blue) in a roughly 5″ square. I wasn’t too worried about the thickness of the base layer or whether it completely covered the denim. Then I started creating the petals with small bits of roving.

I may need to work out a better shaping method, but petals are organic, so I wasn’t too worried. However, my roving did get somewhat distorted during the felting process. As I mentioned, this is a learning curve!

I used two different greens for the leaves, which I inserted under the flower petals. In the future, I’d work from the bottom up. I added some yellow to the flower petals to give them a bit of shading. Next time, I’ll be a bit more careful in the placement of any roving for shading. The center is small bits of brown roving. I kept it all within the 5″ square and tried to keep the layers somewhat even by not putting the orange, yellow, and green into the center, although the center was thicker than the outer edges.

If I were felting this by hand, I would use the 7-needle felting tool and the large felting mat. I wanted to use the embroidery machine, so in the Creativate Embroidery Software, I used the Quilt Block Wizard to create a five-inch-square “grid quilting” design. I used a diamond pattern with a 1 mm gap, so the “stitches” are very close together. Not so great for quilting, but perfect for felting! I installed the Embroidery Felt Set and placed a layer of water-soluble stabilizer over the roving. Now I was ready to stitch!

I should have basted around the hoop before putting the embroidery Felt Set on the machine because I now had to babysit that loose piece of stabilizer! Between the slight stretch in the denim, the thickness of the roving in the middle, and the loose stabilizer, some of the felt got distorted. Like I said – I was winging this – that’s how I learn. Next time – use a water-soluble stabilizer as a base, aim for more even layers of roving, and secure the stabilizer on top.

I simply pulled the water-soluble stabilizer away and VOILÀ – there’s my felted flower. For a first attempt, I’m thrilled! Learning is so much fun, and I didn’t use much roving to make the design, so there’s plenty to make something else! Perhaps I’ll even get that large landscape together!

This method replicates felting by hand. There’s NO distinct pattern in the felting, as we saw yesterday, created by the various directions in which the felting needle went. My pattern was simply very tight crosshatching.

Then I trimmed the piece and inserted it into my shadow box! It didn’t take very long to make, and what a neat project.

I thought I’d share this felted wool project with you. It’s a small piece of felting my daughter made when she was about 10. It was done by felting with a single needle. Perhaps I should try to replicate that for my next project!

Here’s a recap of a few things I’ll do differently for the next machine embroidery felted project:

1. Use a water-soluble stabilizer for the base.
2. Felt the background first. I’m not sure this will make a difference, and it definitely adds to the time, but it’ll reduce the thickness of the layers and prevent distortion. If I decided to quilt the background first, I’d use a grid pattern with a much wider gap – let’s say 5mm, so that the process would be faster. That would be similar to basting quilt layers together!

Then add the flowers, leaves, and other elements, and use the grid pattern with the 1 mm gap. Obviously, you want to keep your project in the embroidery hoop.

3. Secure the stabilizer so it can’t shift.
4. Select the floating foot option for machine embroidery and raise the foot height to accommodate the thickness, thereby reducing drag on the roving layers.

Of course, if you’re felting by hand, it’s easy to add small bits here and there, using the various sizes of felting tools. You could also stitch the main parts using the embroidery machine and add small details by hand.

So many possibilities and so little time, but I want to get my hands on all 24 colors of that roving!

Now, let’s finish off that cushion top I started yesterday. Please note – this is NOT a tutorial, but you should have enough information to finish your cushion!

I decided to use buttons for the closure, but I wanted to try making buttonholes on the embroidery machine to ensure even spacing. It’s not that I’m against handwork, but if I have a machine that will make life easier or give me something new to learn, then I’m all for it.

I started by cutting two pieces of fabric the same width as the cushion top, but generous in length, with enough extra to turn under an edge and have those edges overlap. I went with a 2-inch turned-under edge for the buttonholes and a 1-inch turned-under edge for the buttons, which I’ll interface and turn under. I applied a strip of fusible interfacing to the two flaps and serged the raw edges. Then I pressed the flaps under along the edge of the interfacing.

In this photo, the piece on the right shows the interfacing fused in place but not yet folded back, while the piece on the left has the interfacing fused and pressed in place. Once the buttonholes are complete, baste the two pieces together along the sides at the overlap.  Ensure the pieces overlap sufficiently for the buttons to work, and that, when overlapped, the two pieces are large enough to match the front. You can always trim the excess.

I used the Create Shape tool in Embroidery Edit to space the three buttonholes evenly. The shape I selected was a straight line, and I added three buttonholes to that line. I selected a buttonhole stitch from the Utility Menu and rotated the buttonholes so they were parallel to the folded edge.

I used a metal hoop to stitch them, and within a few minutes, I had three beautiful and perfectly aligned buttonholes. I’ve never used the embroidery machine to make buttonholes before, but you can be sure that I’ll do it again!

I hand-stitched the Elan Orange Shank buttons after sewing the cover together. Here’s what they look like. I LOVE the buttons. I think I’ve developed a fetish for buttons. There are so many amazing buttons out there, and well, I want them all!

Honestly, buttons can dress up anything, and I chose the orange one because they look amazing on this dark green fabric, and should I ever tire of looking at the flowers, I’d be delighted to look at this side!

Note: Where you place the opening on the back is up to you. Mine is about in the middle, but it could be closer to the top or the bottom. You choose.

Speaking of buttons, remember the Dress It Up Large Bee buttons I had set aside? Well, those are shank buttons as well, and they wouldn’t have sat well on the single thickness of the background of my cushion. I have a small pair of cutters that will cut the shank off cleanly. Now it’s easy to use the hot glue gun to glue them in place.

I glued three bee buttons onto the front before assembling the front and back. The last thing was to serge the front to the back, turn it inside out, hand-stitch the buttons in place, and button up the back! Notice how shaving a wee bit off the corners doesn’t change the shape of the cushion and helps to eliminate dog ears! You can learn how to eliminate dog ears in this article.

Oh MY!!!! I love this cushion – it’s adorable!

After all that felting on the embroidery machine, there’s one last important step. A lot of wool felt has likely accumulated in the bobbin area, so be sure to get out your mini-vacuum attachment to remove all the lint. Your machine will love you!

And there you have it – two amazing projects made with the UNIQUE Craft wool roving! What’s fun about these projects is that anyone can make them, especially if you’re felting by hand. Whether you choose to do free-form by hand or machine, use digitized embroidery motifs, or any combination of those methods, there are endless ideas you can create! I’ve only scratched the surface and can’t wait to try other ideas. And I need to shop for more of that wool roving in all 24 colors! Let’s not forget the exciting options for buttons!

Speaking of buttons, tomorrow I’m exploring another project inspired by a unique button collection. I can’t wait to share that with you!

Have a wonderful day!

Ciao!

This is part 3 of 5 in this series

Go back to part 2: Creating Felted Flowers with UNIQUE Craft Wool Roving