Felting Inspiration - Wandering Lydia

Tea cup pincushion by Wandering Lydia

Wandering Lydia is a fellow member on the Etsy Recyclers Guild Team. Jody, the artist behind Wandering Lydia, creates amazing wool hats, mushroom gardens, and felt pins.  Each item is handmade from recycled felted sweater wool.  She purchases the sweaters from charitable thrift shops.  In doing this, Jody:

- supports the thrift shops' work
- keeps the wool in use and out of a landfill.

After she purchases the sweaters, she cleans, felts, and sometimes over-dyes them.  At that point, she can begin creating. 

Jody's work is unique, creative...and quite inspiring!  Take a look at this beautiful hat:

Felted hat by Wandering Lydia

She says about the hat is a great way to keep: "...warm and cozy in this exotic magenta and black designer wool hat made from upcycled felted sweaters. I was saving the carved vintage button for a really special hat and this is it."

What caught my eye initially about Wandering Lydia was the tea cup at the top of the page.  Because I do a lot of sewing and embroidery, I enjoy having a variety of pincushions.  I thought the pincushion Jody is offering in her shop would be such a beautiful item to use while doing handiwork. 

She said the "pastel pink mushroom garden is accented with hand crocheted blossoms"  and that usually she doesn't  "find the matching saucer with these cups so this was a lucky find."

Set of six red and white mushroom ornaments

To see more of Jody's work, take a look at her Flickr page. When I went to visit her there, I discovered a series of beautiful felted pins like this snowflake one:

Felted snowflake pin by Wandering Lydia

Want to see more? Go to Wandering Lydia's blog.  It was there that I read a post about how Jody's hats were featured in a magazine.

Two of Wandering Lydia's hats in the

May/June issue of Belle Armoire's Salon

It was a pleasure looking at Wandering Lydia's shop on Etsy this morning, and seeing items made by one the many creative people on the Etsy Recyclers Guild Team.