Easter Chicks

Last year, I knitted some lovely eggs for P and J for Easter, but this year I completely forgot that Easter was coming up at all (I know, I saw all the other posts on people's blogs, but it just didn't register).  So when I saw this post by Rosy-Posy, I thought it would be a great little project for P and J and I to do this Easter.

I've had some roving that DH's Nan gave me.  She used to spin, but has given it up (more because of time constraints than infirmity - this is the 80 year old who still skis!), so I thought this would be a great opportunity to try our hands at wet felting.  The first part of the process was to dye the roving (more on this next post).  

Because this was also the first time I'd tried to dye roving, I decided to make the chicks so that I only had to dye one colour.

We followed the process as outlined by Rosy Posy, although our chicks aren't quite as smooth as hers ended up.

I did most of the wrapping myself because it was tricky for P and J to wrap the roving around in a ball, but P did all the wet felting herself.  As this was the first time I'd wet felted anything, I was a little worried about the length of time it was taking for the balls to felt down.  But we stuck with it and ended up with some very cute little yellow balls.  I was really proud of how well P did (J was much less interested in the whole wet felting process).

Once they were completely dry (thanks to the hot water cupboard), I embroidered on a little orange beak, and used a permanent marker to make the little eyes (I don't have any black thread).

Cheep cheep