Needle Felted Monsters

I've been meaning to share these little monsters with you for some time.  They started following a random wintery evening spent in the company of Pinterest.  I stumbled across some needle felting pictures and needed to know more.  I had a trawl round the internet and discovered the inspirational work of (nearly) local artist Gretal Parker ...which lead to me buying her beautiful book..which left me gagging to have a go too!

This little guy is about 4" high and looked so sad and lovelorn I gave him a heart but it didn't cheer him up.

Awww

And this chap is full of mischief.  I didn't start from a drawing, just an idea in my head and I was  a bit surprised when he ended up looking like a dog.  No?  He's supposed to be a ferocious beast but I couldn't pull it off.  Even after I'd given him massive fangs.

Still not scarey.

And this is a mouse.  A very simple shape so I could experiment with curves as I'd seen in Gretel's creations.

The pink thing is a tail with a curl at the end.

And my final monster!  I had some difficulty with the arms which appear wider near the paws but I'm very fond of him :)  Needle felting is very forgiving and you can make most shapes just by using special barbed needles and stabbing at a ball of woolly stuff.  It's not expensive and you can find supplies at Gretels' online shop.  If you decide to have a go make sure you buy the leather finger protectors.  It stops everything becoming very jabby and sweary.

As usual I'm finding it difficult to find my unique creative voice but I'll keep stabbing the wool (merino wool tops to be precise) and see what new creatures arrive.