A friend asked me how I made this hare………………….. it is kind of hard to explain so I took pictures as I went along – hopefully this will explain how I made him! I used lots of pictures of hares to help me and I found his head particularly hard to do – I made the head 3 times before I attached it (finally)
First of all I got my wool and needles ready – I added extra wool colours later – grey, black and 2 different browns. I got an assortment of needles out – larger ones for rough felting the shape and finer ones for the detail – some inbetween ones for bits like the ears.
He started life as an onlong shaped piece of wool batting from the second bag from the right and I started to needle the piece until I saw the shape I wanted emerging
Next I felted his 2 back legs from 2 more clumps of batting. I rolled them into shape, bent them at the foot and knee joints and felted them for a long time to make them keep their shape – just wool, no wire or armature – then I dressed the legs and feet in their first coat of top wool and started to needle in the first coat on his back
I then made the tail and started mixing the colours for his thick, back coat and added the white hairs that go up his sides
Next for the front legs. These are long and straight so I used fine chenile sticks (pipe cleaners) to wind the wool round before I felted it. I then attached them to the body, felting them in hard so they do not come loose.
Next for the head and this was really difficult to get the right shape and to felt it onto the body at the correct angle.
I did not felt his head too firmly yet as I needed to add the eyes – to do this I made holes with a bradawl, and glued the eyes in place.
Adding the colour and texture to his face took forever – white around the eyes to define them, then a fleshy nose, different shades of brown, grey and black to match the contours of the face and of course, some whiskers to stitch in. I stitched these in with a long doll needle so that they cannot pull out easily – I secured them each with a dab of glue.
I carried on felting over to make sure his top coat had the right mix of colours in and then I made the ears (forgot to take pics of this as I was so engrossed!) Then I felted them on to the top of his head, leaning backwards slightly, edged with white hair and with the classic black stripe and tips.
Finally, he was done!!! I hope you like him and enjoyed my guided journey to his completion.
