Needlin' Around the Garden

Text & photos by Judy Thomas, Adult Education Instructor,  Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

A botanically inspired felt landscape, by instructor Judy Thomas.

Earlier this month, for the first time ever, I offered a class — Needle Felting for the Botanical Artist. We had so much fun in the class, I thought I’d share a few photos with you of our work. Many of you may not know about needle felting — or how easy and fun it is. 

On the first day, students learned the basic skills and tools of needle felting and practiced making small, botanically-inspired creations (this craft involves using a barbed needle to lock loose, colorful wools onto a fabric base or into a three-dimensional object). Students made lovely creations and some samples are shown here.  We had a lot of fun and students were pleased how quickly they were able to make lovely “wool drawings”! 

Class participants working with felt.

The class will be repeated  February 2 and 16 in 2013, and I’d love to have you join us.  What a great way to spend a cold February Saturday.  We’ll be sure to have lots of good cheer and conversation. Registration is limited to 10,  so keep an eye out for the new adult education calendar — It will be in Style Weekly on December 5th. For you early birds, registration opens online on December 3rd.  The next class will focus on skills and tools, as well as making both a small and a large botanically-inspired work of art!  And even though we’ll some class participants will have taken the first class, you don’t have to have already taken the first class to join us, so I hope you will!

Note:  If  you’d like to learn more about instructor Judy Thomas, you can visit her gardening blog, Central Virginia Organic Gardener, or her needle-felting blog, Needlin’ Around.