Tag Archives: felted animal

Mini Schubie the Sheltie Feltie

Posted on December 27, 2018 by Amanda Adebisi

I am very excited to present to you my greatest needle felting challenge yet. He is modelled on a beautiful young Shetland sheepdog (Sheltie) called Schubert (Schubie)! The real dog is very much loved by his human mum and dad and his dad wanted a surprise gift for his wife (Schubert’s mum) for Christmas!
I rarely do commissions as I try to avoid the stress of it but having spent quite a bit of time admiring the real Schubert I had been wondering how it would be to needle felt a mini one and quite fancied a stab at it! 🙂

Schubert has so many tones to his luxurious fur so I spent quite a bit of time blending wool colours. He also has very long fur so I really put into practice my ‘adding long animal fur’ techniques.

I started off wrapping corriedale core wool over a wire armature. Then I added paw pads and then some detail on his face before starting on his belly fur and working from his tail end towards his neck with merino wool. I did his wispy feet hair and tail last. Please see the work in progress videos below for more info.

In an attempt to keep him as authentically ‘Shetland’ as possible I managed to include some brown Shetland sheep wool in his coat and his whiskers are made of black Shetland pony tail hair all the way from Scotland.

As with all my creations it took many hours of needle felting and love. I am very pleased with the way he turned out and I hope you like him too 🐶🐕😆

Here are some short videos of the process, followed by the final photos of Schubie.

Here is the process of the armature with the body shape sculpted over it in wool:

Here is the Schubie journey:

And a quick video showing the making of his tail:

And here he is 🙂

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Posted in Needle felt and tagged art, dog, dog sculpture, felted animal, needle felt, Needle felted animal, needle felted dog, puppy, sheltie, shetland sheepdog, wool. Bookmark the permalink.

Miniature donkey

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Amanda Adebisi

I can now reveal my latest creation, a miniature donkey!

I was sent some photos of an absolutely gorgeous real miniature donkey and asked to needle felt her as a surprise Christmas present for her loving owner. It was an absolute pleasure to create her as I looked at those cute eyes and wonderful fluffy coat.

As she is a hoofed animal I quickly realised that to stand up she would need some stability so I wrapped core Corriedale wool over a wire armature. She soon started to take shape!!

I made her as a young fluffy donkey with long fur rather than when she was a bit older after a summer moult but this meant I really had to think about how to get the right colour and texture for her fur. I ended up buying 4 wool colours and mixing them carefully by hand with other brown and cream colours I had to get the right shade.

Once I started adding the long fur I had to be so careful not to let the strands fuzz up when laying the animal down to reach all sides. I therefore had to start on the legs and tummy and do the back and face last so the fur was looking its best in these areas and I didn’t end up squashing her ears.

Thankfully donkey fur is slightly matted so I didn’t have to worry too much about it having to look silky smooth! I just love doing faces so this was hard for me to have to wait til the end but it was definitely worth it 🙂

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Posted in Needle felt and tagged Donkey, felted animal, felting, handmade, miniature, wool. Bookmark the permalink.

Fox and squirrel ready for adoption!

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Amanda Adebisi

Looking for Christmas present ideas?

How about a one of a kind wool art sculpture from Fit to be loved?

I have just put two red beauties; the red fox and red squirrel up for adoption in my Etsy shop!!

Some of you may recognise the little red squirrel ‘Chestnut’ as she stars in my ‘adding head and limbs tutorial’ and I have posted about her before. The red fox has been nicknamed by a few friends of mine as the ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ as he is so strikingly red and looks like a real gent in character, ready to go on an adventure.

I absolutely adore them both but they are looking for their forever homes.

Have you ever seen a real red squirrel? Aren’t they adorable! Though they can be shy and hard to find. Thankfully I managed to get to see some at a British wildlife centre recently but unless you live in certain places of the UK and abroad you may never be privileged to see one in the wild. But you can now have your very own miniature in your own home..

Chestnut is a one of a kind sculpture, made through the art of needle felting. It has taken many hours to give her that unmissable joyful character! Her core is made of natural undyed Corriedale wool from New Zealand, her tail hands and feet are wrapped and needle felted over wire. You can see she holds a nut ready to take a nibble..

Her beautiful red coat is made of soft Merino wool (non-mulesed) from South Africa (Cape). Colours were blended and varying layers of wool were needled into place to create her natural fur texture. Her nose and eyes are made of wool too, so no glass or plastic beads.

Why not give her a new home this Christmas and keep her warm and snug?

The inquisitive foxes we sometimes see in our garden were the inspiration for making him. Although some find foxes to be a pest, it never ceases to amaze me at how we have such a beautiful wild animal of their size in the UK! I even had the priviledge to nurse a 5 day old cub once!

This striking red fox has been lovingly hand-made from 100% wool over wire.

He is one of a kind, and it has taken many hours of needle felting to give him his noble character!
His core is made of natural undyed Corriedale wool from New Zealand, wrapped and needle felted over wire. This natural wool was also used for his chest and tummy fur. The wire gives him stability and his head, legs and tail can be carefully repositioned to other standing poses.

His nose and eyes are made of wool too, so no glass or plastic beads.

His foxy red coat is made of soft Merino wool (non-mulesed) from South Africa (Cape). Colours used were rust, cinnamon, mink and raven. Colours were blended and varying layers of wool were needled into place to create his natural fur texture.
Dark brown Corriedale wool was felted over his legs and back of ears, used for detail on his face and also blended on his coat for shadow.

Could you or someone you know give him a loving home this Christmas? He doesn’t bite and costs nothing to feed 🙂

Please contact me if you have any questions about either of them.

Amanda x

Little by little (a custom needle felted guinea pig)

Posted on August 24, 2014 by Amanda Adebisi

Do you ever feel like you just don’t have the time to needle felt? Feel envious of those amazing artists who produce several sculptures a week whilst you work hard at your full time job and dream you could be stabbing some wool but then feel too tired when you finally get home?

Well you are not alone! …I really haven’t had much time at all recently. In fact I have felt so frustrated about it and have had to remind myself that I am not in a competition but this is my hobby and my style and my time.

This month I have proved to myself that you can still take just a tiniest bit of time out to have a little stab here and there even with a full time job …and guess what ? little by little you start to make some progress and when those deep brown eyes from that newly needle felted animal are staring back at you, you soon realise you have managed to create something quite wonderful and all that effort and time passing by has been worthwhile!! 🙂

Of course seeing that end result is very satisfying but it’s time to enjoy the journey too (no matter how long it takes) !!

So, the dark eyes staring back at me? Well they would be from the little guinea pig I just finished for a very doting guinea pig lover in Warrington in memory of her precious loved guinea pig.

This sweetie pie has taken me a while but I got there in the end!…. phew…. Hope you like her.:-)

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Felted birdie

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Amanda Adebisi

Thinking of making a simple needle felted bird? not sure where to start or need some ideas of how to finish your creation with some extra detail?

Last week I had the pleasure of making a little needle felted bird for my sister as a birthday present. She asked me for a simple teal bird to go with her newly decorated room once it is finished but as soon as I started I couldn’t help but let my imagination take over.

I absolutely love my sister so I expressed this by forming heart shaped wings that have beautiful button and thread embellishments. I also tried to make his facial features come to life by giving him adorable eyes and a little tuft of wool on his head(much like a woodpecker or crested tit) 🙂

Last night I got to see my sister’s face as she opened up her parcel through the wonder of ‘facetime’ on our ipads. So pleased she likes him!! I hope you like him too..

So where did I start? As you can see I twisted some cotton felt covered pipe cleaners to make a birdie shape…

I then wrapped lengths of core wool over the structure and needle felted until I got the right shape. (Be careful not to stab the wire in the centre of the pipe cleaners by felting along the edge of the pipe cleaner only).

I then used softer merino wools for the teal and blue birdie colours – light and dark shades of teal and denim blue (the beige you see under the label is for another project coming soon).

I carefully wrapped and felted the denim blue colour wool over his legs and feet. I did the same with his beak later on. (See here for other ideas on how to felt tiny animal feet and toes).

I chose the lighter teal wool for the underneath, face, wings and flecks of colour on the tail. I used the darker teal for the back, top of head with tuft, eye stripe and tail. I felted simple eyes in black with a white dot placed to mimic where the light would reflect and added a thin strip of white around the eyes. (see how to felt animal eyes here).

I made the tail and wings separately before felting them on to the body (see here for how to add body parts). I chose some pearly flower shaped button which I sewed onto the wings and stitched a pattern along the length of each wing with a teal and a glittery white embroidery thread. I didn’t fully felt the wings to a perfect shape at this stage as I completed this once attached to the body..

Once on the body I then used the denim blue wool to emphasise the shape of the heart wings by felting around the edge..

Here is the finished little teal birdie ready to send to my sister..:-)

……and of course no creation can go to is new owner without a bit of ‘fit to be loved’ wrapping..

Don’t miss out on another post from Fit to be loved, click ‘follow’ on the right hand side of my find out more page.

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Posted in Needle felt and tagged felt decorations, felted animal, felted bird, felting tutorial, handmade, needle felt, teal. Bookmark the permalink.

Christmas hare

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Amanda Adebisi

So today I went to my sister’s house for our second Christmas dinner. (Well for my family it was but for me it was actually my first as Christmas day I was unfortunately very sick and had to stay in bed most of the day to recover and managed to eat only 2 savoury crackers).

Feeling much better now after great company, delicious food and watching the old Back to the Future films and the Snowman and the snow dog.

I made this little hare for my sister for Christmas so couldn’t wait for her to open up her ribbon wrapped box after dinner to find out what was inside.

My sister really loves hares. She has several ornaments already and a big picture of one on the wall of her lounge.

As usual I googled photos of real hares as well as bronze and clay sculptures for inspiration and created this chocolate brown hare with champagne cream detail. To give him lots of character and bring him to life I have ensured he has big alluring eyes and one ear that lops down ever so slightly compared to the other as his head tilts to the side.

She loves him 🙂 Hope you like him too..