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Friday, March 26, 2010

The Felting of Frankengeorge

Frankengeorge
Last month, I decided to achieve my lifelong (okay, four months long) dream of felting my cat... as in, needle felting a miniature version of him. Hands Tailung, a cool Japanese department store, had felt sculpture kits, including one for a ginger-spotted cat. I figured all I needed to do was make a few modifications.

Japanese instructions for Frankengeorge

Chinese instructions... 7 pages longer than the Japanese ones!

The weird thing about the kit was that even though the original Japanese instructions only took up two pages, the Chinese instructions had NINE sheets. They were only printed on one side of each page and every other (double-spaced)
sentence basically said "refer to diagram in Japanese instructions." Talk about inefficiency!

Materials

The kit came with wool and two beady glass eyes (I bought a new pair because the included eyes were just a little too beady). To this pile, I added my special ingredient -- our cat's very own fur!

A lock of Taroko George's own fur

This tuft is the result of several vigorous brushings and is almost an exact match for the ginger-colored wool in the kit.

Frankengeorge

Frankengeorge

This is my first felted sculpture (aside from a watermelon-shaped pincushion I made once), so it came out a little lumpy looking. But I like to think I did a good job of capturing Taroko George's crazy essence!

Frankengeorge

Frankengeorge

Frankengeorge

Frankengeorge

Frankengeorge

Taroko George was certainly fascinated by Frankengeorge. I think the fact that Frankengeorge smelled like a mixture of wool, my hands and his own fur really confused/intrigued my cat. The two had to be separated after Taroko George tried to gnaw Frankengeorge's head off.

If any of you decide to try needle felt sculpting, I strongly recommend that you buy a protective leather glove. It's a pill spending US$15 to US$20 for one, but it sure beats being stabbed by little barbed needles (ouch!).

10 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness Oh my goodness Oh my goodness! soooo cute, I want to make little felt friends of all my cats too now.

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  2. Heeee, that's the cutest thing I've seen in ages!
    -Andi x

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  3. Oh my goodness, this is the most freaking adorable thing I have ever seen! ah those photos kill me!

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  4. So so cute, love the use of the cat's fur! Adorable :)

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  5. WOW you did such a great job!! i am so impressed. i have a few little felted animals that i couldn't resist buying on etsy, and have been wanting to try it for myself. i'm glad you could recommend this kit!

    and your likeness of George is spot-on. i LOVE that you used his own fur to make his likeness. and i love how he looks a little suspicious of his mini-me :) ~joelle

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  6. what everyone else said! TOO CUUUUUUUTE. great photos.

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  7. ahhh cute!! I have some needlefelting equipment from a textiles class but have no idea how to use it to make a sculpture, I shall have to investigate. :)

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  8. Oh God, it's the cutest thing I ever saw! And how talented you are to make the little felt cat!! I'm dying on admiration.

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  9. Oh this is super adorable! I wanted to buy one of the many custom felt sculptures available on etsy, but now I think I will try my hand at making my own.

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  10. This is the best thing that I have ever seen. Swoon!
    xoxo,
    Gina

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