Needle Felting Pumpkins

A few finished pumpkins:

Roving!!

Ah, there is something about the beginning of the school year and amassing all the supplies...nothing like digging your hands into a bag of wool roving!

I am so happy I bought this roving from a local business, literally a bike ride away for me!  A yarn and everything fiber arts shop called Rumplestiltskin . Their web site is :   http://yarnyarnyarn.com  and I recommend them highly, PLUS their huge assortment of roving is $2.25 per oz., which is a great bargain, and even better for me with no shipping charges, plus bonus points for supporting fiber arts in my own community! (one day I will figure out how to use links within my blog...why doesn't that happen automatically? I'm swamped, will have to figure that out later...otherwise you will have to do the old fashioned way of cutting and pasting in you browser...support them, they are awsome)

This gorgeousness will be used in the wet felted slippers I will be doing with 27 seventh graders!!!  (did someone say "SOAP FIGHT" !!!  Cleanest they will be all year...lol...)

7th grade handwork 2012-13

7th grade handwork is complicated this year...space limitations due to the "no handwork room" issue...sooo, we shall start with finishing up last year's project, the raffia hats.  It'll be tricky, there will probably be some new students, and a couple have left, so the dynamic of the class could change drastically.  I will feel it out for the first couple of weeks, but this is what I would like to accomplish with this class.

Finish raffia hats.

Boiled wool slippers (which we make from cutting up old felted sweaters)  I would love to make our own felt for these, but it is cost prohibitive...

Needle felting...start with needle felting something on the slippers maybe.  I really want to make soft marionettes with them, and needle felt the heads, hands and feet.  That is a ways down the road, so I will feel that project out.

Some simple woodworking, thinking about something like this:

...although I think this would be better for 6th grade....

Somewhere in there I would like to do a giving project for each grade, but have not come up with what yet!  Suggestions?

**Oh, I have to add to this...with much thought I have come to the conclusion that I will try to do wet felted slippers with this class, the kind like this:

LOL, that's me with my slippers!  I think it will work, I will take small groups of no more than 10, while my assistant Robin leads them in the raffia hats.  They may want to needle felt a bit on them too.  Wish me luck, the last time I attempted this the class ended up having a soap suds throwing battle which made me never want to do it again!  (it was just soap suds for goodness sakes,  but I remember feeling very disappointed and a little angry...hopefully if that happens this year I can laugh it off?)  I think it will be a great experience with this class!

After all that is done, we have options.  Marionettes? Renaissance shirts?  I will be meeting with the class teacher to see if there is anything he would like to see happen...