This is my project for my guild challenge. We each got a scent, mine was cinnamon, that were were supposed to use as inspiration for a fiber related project - it could be handspun, woven, knit, felted, whatever. My first thought was woven coasters using the long cinnamon sticks but they would never go over the front beam of the loom without breaking the sticks and I wasn't about to cut off and re-tie on for each coaster. So, plan b was to use cinnamon sticks for a needlefelted sheep's legs. I could have cheated and used one of two warp painted scarves I already had done that happened to be called cinnamon but I didn't.........
So, before the power went out I quickly sewed up a wool felt sheep body and hot glued the cinnamon stick legs in. Now, this isn't my own idea of the felt body - my friend Karen makes sheep like this using rusted nails for legs and locks (washed sheep's fleece before carding) for the sheep's coat. I knew she wouldn't mind if I made the core of my sheep the same way since I'm not going to be selling any of these (this is my one and only!). Check out her etsy shop, Liongate, to see her adorable sheep for sale, not to mention santas, mice, felted gift tags, fiber, etc. etc.
The first picture is of my sewn and stuffed sheep body as I was just starting to needlefelt his coat on. I don't have locks but I do have hundreds of pounds of Ashland Bay Fiber to choose from, I used the Ecru Colonial Wool. So time consuming to give a slight twist to the roving and needlfelt it on. It took hours!!! (which is why this is my one and only). But I kept with it and my Cinnamon Sheep is adorable - check out the second picture! I still need to sew on a couple of bead eyes but I've played with him enough today.....and 3 of my fingers are smarting from running the felting needle through him. I did learn a valuable lesson - don't be too generous with the hot glue gun glueing in those legs because felting needles don't like them, broke a number of them.
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