Christmas Robin

There’s nothing like the happy anticipation of opening a new craft kit with it’s colourful materials waiting to be created into the picture on the packet, the needlefelt robin kit Sarah bought me for Christmas was no exception.   The kit contained a polystyrene robin form, soft felting wools and two sharp, barbed felting needles.

The contents of the kit

The process of stabbing the wool into the polystyrene form was relatively simple and I started with the orange wool for the breast.  In no time the bird was sporting a rather dashing moustache.

The makings of a flourishing moustache

It was satisfying to see the wool working up into a felt cover over the polystyrene and I quite quickly gave the robin his red breast and cream underwear.

The red breast is complete and the cream wool has been blended over the top and down to his tail.

A layer of brown covered the robin’s face and went over his back to his tail.  I might have been a bit energetic in the tail region, I could feel the polystyrene disintegrating under it’s felt covering.  Black wool was used to create a beak which was a bit fiddly but the eyes were straight forward and so the robin was completed.

The completed robin, according to the pack instructions.

As there was a generous amount of wool in the pack I thought I’d have a go at making something else but I would need something to support the wool while I created the felt.  Boyes had some needle-felting equipment including a brush-like base but at £10.35 the Barnsley War Cry went up.  Luckily Boyes also has a household department and a scrubbing brush for £1 would be ideal.  So having saved on the base I went back to look at the wools and picked a pack of gorgeous reds.

The cheap scrubbing brush and a selection of red wool from Boyes.

Against the vibrant reds the little robin looked a bit dull so I brightened up his red breast.  I thought he needed something else on his back so looked through my bits and bobs and found a mixed bag of wools which contained a long strand of felting wool in variegated brown.  I hadn’t even realised this was felting wool so it was a lucky find.  Thin strands of the brown wool were applied over the beige areas giving the robin some extra colour.

Perched on Kev's hand to show off his new colours.

The pack didn’t contain anything for legs and feet but I couldn’t leave him without them.  I shaped a pipe cleaner into a pair of legs and shaped 2 smaller pieces into v shapes which I stuck on for toes.  By now I had got the bug and had been watching youtube videos so I had seen how the wool can be wound round the pipe-cleaners to cover them.  This was rather more fiddly than it appeared but eventually I had a leg and toes all covered in orange wool.  At that point Mr Berry piped up – he thought it would look better in yellow.  I didn’t have any yellow but that was the least of the poor robin’s problems; the covering of felt had made a giant foot which was pointing sideways. 

The robin with that big foot.

Luckily the foot wasn’t yet attached so I could try a different technique.  Firstly I snipped through the pipe-cleaner to separate the legs, I hadn’t decided how to attach them to the body so that wasn’t a problem.  To reduce the bulk I gave the pipe-cleaner leg a shave.

The shaved leg and big foot strike a pose.

Then using less felt and a dab of glue I covered the leg for a better result.

The scrubbing brush has many uses and here it enables the thin and thick legs to stand on their own foot.  The thin leg is in much better proportion to the robin.

I had by now studied some techniques on youtube and chose the method of adding some cream wool to the top of the leg – again a dab of glue helped here – so the cream wool could then be felted into the robins under-carriage.

Adding the cream wool to the leg so it could be attached to the robin.

The robin has ended up with a pair of chickens legs but I think he looks better for them and if he doesn’t mind perching against something he can stand up on his own. 

The completed robin - thanks Sar.