Children's Fiber Art Projects

Aren't these the cutest things?

My Wednesday Fiber Arts students completed several great projects during the last class of our winter term. The one at left offered the students the use of a variety of skills as they created their Easter chick's nests.

The nests we created from a base of about two yards of yarn followed by short pieces of yarn that students dipped into liquid starch. Once a nest base was created the shorter yarns were layed in layers alternating with some natural twigs and dried grasses to form a small nest. Students were careful to leave an indentation in the middle to leave room the the eggs and chick which they felted using merino wool. Their chicks were then embellished with yellow feathers to create a tail and wings, and squiggly eyes and a bead were added for a beak. All components were secured to the nest with hot glue.

The children enjoyed the felting process which they had learned before and all remembered the basics for completing that task. They quickly figured out how to manipulate the felt to create an egg shape instead of the ball shape they had used for making their bracelets in our first class.

These lovely little yarn baskets were a delight and the children were happy to be taking them home. This too was a liquid starch project which were finally ready to take home after remaining in the classroom to dry. The yarns they used included some of their handspun as well as a thick and thin wool that they had kool-aid dyed in a prior class. Using a small bowl as a mold, students layered their starch soaked yarns making sure they cross each other to create a bond and allowed them to dry until next class. The only glitch with this one is you have to be sure that you cover the mold with plastic wrap so the starch does not adhere to the glass. These are fragile and needed to be sured up in a few places with a dab of elmers but they really were lovely little projects that represented several weeks of accomplishments into a final project.

I was proud for the children to be able to say that these pieces had some of their own hand spun, hand dyed yarns in them!

I am hoping that the children enjoyed my class well enough to sign up for the final school term. I am working on ideas for future projects to carry them forward with their fiber arts!