Beautiful felted leaf :: a 7 year old’s creation
It is not often you get 17 children all enthusiastic to pick up a bar of soap! We had great wet fun at the Woodcraft group tonight making felted leaves this evening. Every child had bought in an autumnal leaf, which we spent some time getting to know. Red leaves, yellow leaves, changing leaves, spiky leaves, scented leaves and larges leaves! One leaf had even been given a name: Tom, on its journey between the tree and the Church hall. We discussed, felt and smelt wool and the children were keen to share their parent’s washing day disasters: yes daddy had shrunk the jumper!
A 7 year old’s first wonderful attempt at felt making!
Using their leaf as an inspiration the coloured wools were carefully teased out to shape into a thin layer of green with reds, golds and yellows layered on top. Then came the fun bit getting the wool wet with hot water and soap and even the liveliest boys were fully engaged in soaping, rubbing and drying their creation, making it shrink into shape. Of course the mess didn’t matter!
One of the great things about wet felting is that you get stunning results very quickly and easily.
I love the autumn colours in this leaf
There was a great sense of pride as we sat around in a circle thirty minutes later and showing off our creations. Leaves were big and green, small and colourful, had carefully arranged rainbow colours, had holes in (like the rhubarb leaves eaten by the slugs), were small and purple…. “I like the way its thick at the bottom and thin around the edges”, “It was good fun”, “I like the shape”, “I want to do this at again”! We agreed it’d be good fun to collect wool on walks along the hedgerows and fences to take home for more felting experiments.
And never before have I seen the Church hall floor cleaner at the end of a Woodcraft session than at the beginning!
