Fun with My First Felt Hat

Me in my Funky Felted Hat

Just about the only good thing about this frigidly cold winter has been that I get to wear the very warm and very funky hat that I made for myself last fall.  I had been wanting to wet felt a hat for myself for a long time, but I wasn't sure how to go about it.  After reading a couple of books, lots of blogs and watching several online tutorials, I came up with a way that worked for me.  To make a long story short, I needle felted on a rudimentary homemade foam hat form, then wet felted on a ball.  Then, I did my Zazzy Peacock thing and needle-felted a fun piece to decorate my new hat -- including a peacock motif, swirls, leopard print, and all the colors in my winter wardrobe.  I love it!

My homemade foam hat form

Here's how it happened:  First I tried to go straight to wet felting on a ball, but that didn't exactly work out.  Using that method, you're supposed to lay the wool roving out on a ball and then somehow magically stretch pantyhose over all that loose wool without messing it up.  Then, voila, you wet felt on the ball.  But as you've probably surmised by now, I completely messed up the wool trying to get the pantyhose on.  Granted, the tutorials warn that it's a two person job and to go very slowly.  I was just one impatient person, and it was a no-go for me.

Layers of wool laid vertically on foam hat form

Then I read about needle-felting on a hat form.  I knew I wanted to wet felt the hat, but since  I prefer needle-felting, I thought I could at least do the pre-felting with a needle and then wet felt once the wool was holding together.  

You can buy hat forms, but that gets very expensive.  Most suggestions for making your own foam hat form involved using spray insulation foam, which is economical, but it sounded complicated and messy.  So I decided to try to carve a form from a block of foam.  For me, this was an inexpensive option because I happened to have two 16" foam blocks from two cube seats that my kids had outgrown.  I used my electric carving knife (yes, the one we use to carve the turkey) to do the job.  The form is rudimentary, and there were little bits of foam just about everywhere, but it worked!  (If you're making your own, remember to size up to allow for lots of shrinkage during the wet felting process.)

Horizontal layer of wool fibers

I laid out the first layer of wool vertically, then horizontally, then vertically, etc., lightly needle-felting the wool in place between each layer.  Most tutorials recommend three layers, but I somehow ended up doing four or five, which is why my hat is extra thick and warm and cozy.  To create the rolled edge, I created a rope of wool (using needle and wet felting); then after laying down the last vertical layer of wool, I turned the hat inside out, and folded the loose ends of wool over the rope along the bottom edge of the hat; then I needle felted it all together.

Ball secured to canister with duct tape

Once I was confident that the wool was holding together and that the layers were even throughout, I transferred the pre-felted hat to a ball for wet felting.  With the ball secured to a canister, I rubbed the wool with hot soapy (using olive oil soap) water for a while.  When it seemed strong enough, I took the hat off the ball and threw it on my counters for a while.  Wow, that really got it firmly felted and fast! I then did some final shaping directly on my head.  

When it was dry, I shaved it very carefully with an electric razor to achieve a smoother finish.  Then it was time to create my personal fascinator.  I needle-felted it separately rather than directly on to the hat.  This gave it a more sculptural quality with more dimension.  Also, I initially thought I would just pin in on so that I could swap it out  at some point, but I loved it so much that I just needle-felted on to the hat. 



By the way, my rolled edge didn't exactly come out even, and I made it worse by trying to create a scalloped edge.  What was I thinking?  At some point, I'll fix that -- the beauty of needle-felting is that you can always continue to add wool -- for more detail or to correct imperfections.  In the meantime, I have been getting lots of use out of this hat during what has been the coldest winter I can ever remember.  It is warm and fuzzy and very me, and I love it.  I think there is more hat-making in my future!

My unique Zazzy Peacock felted wool hat with its colorful peacock heart, swirls, and animal print

My Cutest and Most Versatile Felted Hair Accessories Yet

Zazzy Peacock felted hair accessories available at More Than Paper
Designs include ladybugs and rainbow hearts and peace signs

This week, I am very pleased to announce that some of my cutest girlie hair accessories ever are available at a wonderful, well-established online retailer, More Than Paper.  As the name would imply, More Than Paper carries way more than a great selection of custom stationery.  In fact, they offer such a variety of wonderful gifts and stellar customer service, you'll want to peruse the whole site and do lots of your holiday shopping there.  But first, check out my exclusive Zazzy Peacock offerings at More Than Paper.  The fun and colorful woolen hair accessories will make terrific gifts for all the girls and teens on your holiday list.   Each is available as a headband or a combination hair clip/ ponytail holder.

Zazzy Peacock Rainbow Heart hair accessories

What's a combination hair clip/ ponytail holder?  Well I'm so glad you asked!  (Can you tell I'm super excited about this?)  I recently came up with a new and original way to make my needle felted hair goodies so that the same little ladybug or heart or peace symbol can be used interchangeably as either a hair clip OR a ponytail holder.  And your little girl can change her mind and swap it back in a matter of seconds.  All I did was to felt a loop onto the back of the felted accessory and --voila! -- it can be used with a snap clip or a hair elastic or with anything else that creative girl in your life can think of!  I keep thinking about that big drawer of ribbons my mother kept when my sisters and I were girls.  How fun it would be to thread one of these adorable felted hearts onto a beautiful satin ribbon or a soft thick rope of woolen yarn.   . . .  Ah, nostalgia gets me every time.   Anyway, I hope you get the idea:  these are really fun and versatile.  Each one comes with both a snap clip and an elastic ponytail holder in coordinating colors.  But of course, you can also use your own or anything you like -- that's the beauty of it!

Zazzy Peacock "Sherbet Swirl Hearts" in pink, purple and orange, 
showing the unique felted loops on the back

And that was the real impetus for me coming up with this new multi-functional hair accessory.  I had been considering offering ponytail holders for a while, but I was concerned about the elastics not lasting.  Maybe it's just me, but my hair is very thick so no matter how high the quality of the elastics and scrunchies I buy, they just don't last more than a few months tops.  I didn't want my customers to buy a beautiful handmade felted ponytail holder only for the elastic to stretch out or break.  So, I came up with this loop idea.  It worked great!  Then, I quickly realized that the snap clips could slide through the same loop too.  Actually, if I make the loops just a little bigger, little girls could probably wear these as finger rings!  I'm also working on some similar products for teens and adults -- felted accessories with triple functionality that can be used as brooches or hair clips or  ponytail holders.  Look for those soon in my Zazzy Peacock Studios shop on Etsy.

Thanks for looking! Have fun holiday shopping for your loved ones!

All Zazzy Peacock Studios designs and images are © Jill Newman 2012.  All rights are reserved.

A New Hook for My Colorful Animal Print Swirls

Felted leopard handbag hook holding
a leather bag I hand-painted with a
leopard print after accidentally
splattering it with nail polish.

One of my pet peeves is restaurants that have rounded back chairs.  You can't hang your handbag on the back of those chairs! Where am I supposed to put my purse?  I'm not putting it on a dirty restaurant floor, if I can help it.  If possible I use an extra chair; otherwise, I end up keeping my bag on my lap, which is not comfortable.  Then I discovered these great little purse hooks or hangers that you can carry around in case of such an "emergency."  It has a magnet that keeps in flat in your handbag, and then it opens up into a hook.  You place the flat round part on the table, and voila -- you can hang your bag.  


The problem was, I couldn't really find one I liked.  The solution:  I decided to make some, of course.  So here are my latest felted purse hangers.  My  favorite designs are the ones that look like the swirled branches of the animal print trees I'm so fond of painting.  It's really fun to take a design from one medium and translate it into another. I love combining bold beautiful colors with leopard, giraffe, tiger, and ocelot patterns.  It's a lot of work to needle-felt these intricate little animal prints and swirls, but I think they're worth it.  I also made some purse hooks with yin yang and peacock motifs that I'll be adding to my shop soon.  Next, I think I'll try making some of these designs into rings and pendants too.

Zazzy Peacock purse hooks with colorful swirls and animal prints, available in my Etsy shop

Thanks for looking at my latest creations!


Related posts:  Loving the Swirl of Life  (to learn more about my swirl tree paintings and the universal meaning of swirls).
So I Have a Thing for Peacocks

View of the handbag hooks in the closed position
Visit my Zazzy Peacock Etsy shop to see these and lots more!

My painting, "Peacock Ocelot Tree," shows the origins of my animal print swirl designs