Not quite enough to pull Santa's slay..

I've been felting seamless Reindeers.. I made 4 teacosies and had a request for a bigger one turned into a doorstopper.  At one point I looked up from my work and saw this line up..

Only one has his face embroidered on..

Which really made me smile.. I just needed a felted slay behind them and they could of been my Christmas card picture :)  Here's a quick glimpse at how I made them:

The first things that I made were the antlers and tail.. to keep the fluffy ends dry while I was felting them I tightly wrapped them in cling film / plastic wrap.  I rooted them in between the fourth and fifth fibre layers.

After cutting out a reindeer shaped resist from foam floor underlay I covered it with several layers of white Norwegian wool fibre

The first 2 layers.
Who would guess that under this big fluffly mound 
of white fibre is a reindeer shape :)

The fifth and sixth layers are coloured merino.. browns to draw the reindeer shape.. fifth layer was green around the bottom.

On the sixth layer I covered the green with white merino and scattered some linen fibres

adding the antlers

Part way through.  This is pretty much felted, you can see the white fibres have crept though the colour & the green has crept through the white (reminds me of grass peeking through snow).  I use my ridged rolling stick to really harden the felt.

After drying him stuffed with tea towels to keep his shape, I stuff the head with wool fibre - and seal the inner neck to stop the stuffing falling out :) then embroider the face on

Now they all have their faces :)

The one in the middle is a tea cosy, the others are door stoppers.  I only needed to make one door stop, but the first (on the right) didn't quite turn out as I wanted - I used all merino fibre and the white didn't creep through to make the reindeer heathery so I made the second one to be sure it had the finish that my customer liked.  

The doorstops have weighted packs with leather bases sewn into the bottom

An update on my slippers TV appearance..  I did manage to find the report on the internet but unfortunately they hadn't used that footage  :(  The lovely lady with the Faerie slippers had been interviewed for an hour or so on different aspects of internet shopping and they used the bit that fit their story.. never mind.  The main thing is how happy that my lady is to of mentioned them in the first place! 

It's my birthday tomorrow and I'm meeting a friend for lunch, then going to the cinema (to see the Hobbit) and having dinner with Gary and the kids.. should be a lovely day.

xx