In anticipation of my sister's visit and our needle felting adventure I had decided to buy some of the Clover needle felting applique molds I had previously seen.
While my sister was working on her free style needle felted landscape design I decided to try creating a pink rose (shown above) using the Clover Applique Mold, Rose Design (shown above).
The mold contained two large front and back sheets with instructions. The two sheets looked a little cumbersome at first until I realized there were four different languages on each sheet. So, I had to find the English section. While I can understand the cost effectiveness of doing this it's not the most user friendly approach and makes the instructions seem way too complicated.
The instructions were of a text and pictorial nature and once I found the English version they were easy to follow. They recommended in the instructions using the molds with the Clover Pen Style Needle Felting Tool (shown below) and either the Clover Felting Needle Mat Small or the Clover Felting Needle Mat Large.
I soon realized that some of the pieces of the the molds were pretty tiny so only the single felting needle or Clover Pen Style Needle Felting Tool would work. I had previously bought a large foam felting block but soon realized that the molds did work the best with the Clover Felting Needle Mat Large.
I had no problem putting the pink rose together except I quickly found out that the needles for the Clover Pen Style Needle Felting Tool break very, very easily. I ended up going through 8 needles before I was finished with all my flowers. If you're going to embark on a needle felting adventure be sure to buy lots, and lots of replacement needles as you are going to need them.
I was pleased with the way my pink rose came out but my sister thought it was boring (plus I had used up all the pink roving - bad sister!) so I decided to try a multi-colored purple rose next.
I was pleased with the way both of my roses came out and pleased with the Clover rose mold, despite the 2 page instructions.
After my sister went home I decided to try creating a daisy using the Daisy Needle Felting Applique Mold By The Each I had bought and using the wonderful alpaca roving from her alpaca Sunflower. Compared to some of the cheap roving I had been using some of which I really think was dyed raw mohair packaged as 100% wool roving Sunflower's white roving was exceptional. It was beautifully white, fine, without bits and pieces of non-roving materials, and just plain exceptional to use.
The instructions and packaging of the Daisy Needle Felting Applique Mold By The Each were similar to the instructions and packaging of the Clover Applique Mold, Rose Design mentioned above so please see my comments there as they would be the same for the Clover daisy mold and all the rest of the Clover molds I bought.
I was pleased with the way the daisy came out and decided to use Sunflower's white roving to create a pure white rose.
Since the pure white rose had come out so well I decided to use Sunflower's white roving and some nice burgundy colored roving I had previously bought to create a multi-colored burgundy and white rose.
My sister and I had some unfinished picture frames that I thought would look nice when finished with my felted flowers.
Since I was having such luck with the roving I was using and with the molds I decided to use a combination of the rose design petals upside down, the daisy design leaves, and the floret and berries berries to create a red Poinsettia.
I had to play around with the shapes a little and improvise here and there with my Poinsettia, but overall I was pleased with the way it turned out.
I decided to write separate blog posts for my flowers and tell you what I had to do, the problems I ran into, and what I was thinking as I went along. My posts will be following so please return to find out how I finished all of the above. I think you'll be a little surprised as to how they all came out.
If you get a chance please check out my sister's Rock Garden Alpacas Etsy Shop where she sells her alpaca fiber and handmade alpaca fiber products.
Copyright © 2004 - 2023 - All Rights Reserved - Written By Linda Walsh of Linda's Blog. Linda is a doll maker and doll pattern designer.
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