I'm contemplating whether I want to get a needle felting machine, so I went over to my local sewing store and asked for permission to try their machine. The photos shown are both the front and back sides of my quick experiments.
The top two images are left over scraps from Orange Construction Fence Series #49, 50 or 51 (I'm not sure which), that I needle felted two strips of red yarn from the back side.
This is a sample that I felted the yarn on the top side of the scrap, and below is a sample of a strip of yelllow-ish wool felt and some green fleece felted from the back to the front of another scrap.
I'm not sure if I can afford to buy a felting machine right now. If I do, I will look for one that is dedicated to felting (instead of getting an attachment for my sewing machine, because the amount of lint created will mean I'll need to get my sewing machine cleaned very often), a finger guard is a must because it was very obvious how easy it would be to sew your fingers (and I don't want to find out how painful it would be to have 5-7 sewing needle go through my finger at the same time), and I want a machine that lets me change the needles individually, instead of as a group.
I've received a lot of email from other sewers who gave me their opinion about which machine I should investigate purchasing. Suggestions include the Pfaff, Baby Lock and Janome. I have no idea which is better than the other, except some do fit in to my (above) criteria and some do not.
Another use for this machine, which is of great interest is embellishing my sweaters! When I get bored with my sweaters, or when they don't fit as well as they should, I have a "habit" of cutting them up and adding parts of other sweaters to them to funk them up. Some day this winter I'll take pictures of the sweaters I gave a new life to in the past. If I get a needle felting machine, I know I'll be messing around with more sweaters. Winters in New England are very longgggggggg, and it's easy to get bored with one's clothing.
