Needle felted creatures from the sea and beyond, by Chrissy of “The Felted Chicken”

Chrissy lives in California and has an amazing collection of needle felted creatures indigenous to the sea. I especially love her blowfish! On Chrissy’s Flickr account and her blog she shows you her dying techniques for the blowfish. She has brought a whole new dimension to needle felting. She has a wonderful imagination and living in California near a sea, must help her develop her realistic looking sea creatures. I love her octopus, lobster and of course her awesome sushi. Take some time and visit fried chicken! You will find unexpected creations that I’m sure you will enjoy. You can find Chrissy on her The Flted Chicken blog, her ETSY shop, Flickr and on Facebook. If you are a member of Facebook you will want to become Chrissy’s fan.

Chrissy also is creating a sweet line of (re)Gift Boxes and bags “Pictured” made of a pre-felted fabric called Eco-spun. This is a synthetic felt that is made of 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles.

Chrissy tell us!

I am a scenic sculptor living in West Hollywood. Right now I’m really trying to focus on my new ETSY shop.

Currently I am making many things out of felt. I love the fabric; it reminds me of craft projects I did as a child. My sculptures are 100% hand-felted wool made by Needle-felting. Needle-felting is the process of matting and compressing animal fibers into felt by stabbing a barbed needle into the fibers over and over and over and over again. It is very time-consuming, but also amazingly fulfilling. It allows me to hand sculpt fabric without having to use a sewing machine. It combines many of my favorite things – sculpting & stuffed animals – fine art & toys – innocence & craftsmanship.

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It’s been well documented that I love a knitting pattern with a bit of whimsy, so when I saw the Mine! Pullover from Sarah L. Kelly recently I knew I had to share it with you.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to knit a sweater with a yoke full of seagulls? And another seagull at the waist? Chasing little crabs?

The story behind the sweater (and you knew there had to be one, right?) is that while Sarah was traveling around Europe there were a lot of cheeky seagulls about. They reminded her of the scene in Finding Nemo where the seagulls say “mine, mine, mine” and thus the Mine! series of patterns was born.

Oh yes, there’s a whole set. It was the sweater I saw first but there’s also a pair of socks (and the pattern says there’s a cowl, too, but I couldn’t find it as of this writing. If you see it let me know and I’ll add the link here!) so you can totally deck yourself out in pesky seabirds if you want.

But back to the sweater for now. This is worked in DK weight yarn from the top down in the round. The yoke and a section at the bottom are worked in stranded colorwork, with stripes on the body, though you could make the body a single color if you wanted. Details like the beaks and eyes are added with duplicate stitch to make the knitting a little easier.

The colorwork sections are charted. The pattern comes in 10 sizes, with a finished chest circumference ranging from 32 to 68 inches, or 80 to 170 cm.

The socks are worked in sock yarn and come in three sizes. There worked from the cuff down and change needle sizes to accommodate the less stretchy nature of stranded colorwork. You can choose from a side profile or a seagull that’s looking out from the sock. Make a matching pair or mix it up.

Both patterns are available on Ravelry: sweater and socks. If you make them I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Sarah L. Kelly]

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