Farmer Boy: Wet Felt Portraits

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The big kids handwork project for Farmer Boy studies involved wool felting. One chapter of Farmer Boy goes into great detail about how they clean and shear the sheep to use wool for yarn. We used our roving wool to create portraits of our barn cats.

They started by creating sketches of their cats. Then they painted in their patterns before beginning on the felt base. Pulling thin strands of roving wool and overlapping them into a round shape, connecting triangles for ears. Once the base is complete, they used the base colour of their face, pulling and placing thin strands in the opposite direction. Lastly, they added the coloured patterns before soaping and agititating the wool by rolling it in a tea towel. 

Features we added with embroidery thread once the portrait was dry.