Little Felted Monkey, Little Felted Doll with Little Friend: Crafts with Trish Tsoi-a-Sue

I'd had so much fun crafting little critters with Chris and Alec Mendoza http://belmontshore.patch.com/blog_posts/little-felted-critters-its-crafty-by-trish-tsoi-a-sue that it felt right to try creating some more characters out of wool, my new material of choice for crafts with kids. You have to dye the wool, so that is step one.

A few days ago, I found some time to put on pots of food coloring, wool and lemon juice and dyed up batches of green, orange, red and blue wool for more variety.

I decided to try mixing some dye colors out of food coloring, as well as dyeing with Kool Aid. I created purple wool from the Kool Aid, but it was a bit light in color.  Note to self: next time use more Kool Aid. From the mixed food coloring, we got rich orange and green, as well as more red and blue.

Well... NOW there was a pile of colored wool sitting there crying out to be used!  So, my niece Elena and I sat down to make... something.  Remember, the beauty of felting is that you sit down without any pattern or direction, and craft whatever your heart desires, whatever comes to mind.

Once the wool dried, it called out to be used, and we were at it again.  Elena and I poked, poked, poked until a little felted monkey and a little felted doll emerged.  We tried to estimate how many times our hands went up and down, and she thought that surely, it was at least 10K!  We were at it for over an hour.

I love the detail on the monkey's eyes, as well as the neatness of the monkey! (Good work, Elena!)

The doll's hair is crochet thread secured onto the doll's head with some wool that was tied around it and poke, poke, poked.

The photos were taken as we worked, and therefore the monkey and doll creations emerge side by side.

They sit down at the end of the evening to have tea.