Gift Toppers : An Introduction to Needle Felting

Date/Time: Saturday October 28, 10am - 12pm

Tuition: $45 per person

Age: Adults, Teens 16+

Level: Beginner & Beyond

Instructor: Karen Engelbretson

Location: Studio 1

Class Size: 12 Participants Maximum each session

In this two-part workshop, students will learn needle felting fundamentals and advanced techniques. In the morning session, beginners will learn to use a barbed needle to shape pure wool roving into acorns and berries. In the afternoon, participants will use this basic process to needle-felt a realistic, life-size cardinal.

Instruction includes how-to needle felt shapes, attach forms, apply colored wool, and create realism using a variety of felting techniques. Participants will complete multiple gift toppers and one bird in the workshops and leave with enough supplies to make a second bird at home. You may participate in the gift topper workshop for $45, or the felting cardinal workshop for $95. The tuition include material fees and boxes. Select the registration for cardinals and gift toppers to register for both workshops.

Karen Engelbretson

Karen is a fiber artist and creator of KJE FeltiesTM, needle felted birds. Her sculptures are inspired and informed by her direct observation of birds in the habitat she’s created around her home studio. “I actively attract birds to my gardens with native flowers and fruiting shrubs, nest boxes, water features, suet and seed. It’s a symbiotic relationship,” she says. Since 2008 more than one thousand needle felted birds have flown from her studio. Karen’s career as a graphic designer and illustrator is evident in her packaged needle felting kits, classroom instruction books and the tiny books about birds she writes, illustrates, and prints in her family’s letterpress print shop.