Felted Bird House / Fairy House

This Fiber Trends pattern for a felted bird house was begging to be made into a fairy house, if you ask me. That said, I dove into my first knitted felting project, and found it to be pretty easy. It knits fast, and then into the washing machine it went.

Luckily we had a birthday party coming up so we all set about fashioning it into a fairy house for a lovely four-year-old girl. We were nearly done with wrapping when I realized I had not taken a photo, so in a rush we got this:

Some helpful tips for felting in the washing machine:

• Throw in a pair of jeans you don't mind washing a lot. It helps with the agitation.
• Place each knitted piece in its own zipped pillowcase. Bits of wool chunk off and you don't want them clogging up your machine or felting onto the other piece.
• Don't worry about weaving in any ends. They will magically felt like everything else.
• Go between very hot water/agitation, and very cold water/agitation. This makes it go faster.
• It might take three or four times of agitating to get it small. Basically keep doing cycles of it until it won't shrink anymore.

On top of the finished piece I needle felted different wooly bits to make some grass, flowers and windows, as well as the polka dotted roof. After the felting, you can cut into the piece without it fraying, so I used an exacto knife to cut the door shape. I needle felted a ball for the doorknob.

Miss Six and my Other Half whipped up the popsicle stick weathervane and needle felted rooster while I finished up the details on the house. While that was going on, LEB (3.5 y) made the two people to be the first inhabitants. We tied them to the outside of the packaging and set off to the party with minutes to spare.

This was our first family collaboration and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. No doubt more of these will be in our gift giving future.