Aquila the Kitten is my brand new design coming out soon! Her crochet pattern is going to be released as a crochet along (CAL) and you can sign up right now to join in the fun. If you have questions, click the button below and scroll down to read the FAQ. Update: The CAL has come to a close, thanks for participating! You can now buy the full pattern here.
I’ve had SO many requests for this pattern; aside from my unicorn, a house cat has been my most requested design ever. Have I done her justice? Let me know!
2022 is Projectarian’s Year of Fur, meaning all my patterns are fur themed this year. Aquila’s furry feature is needle felting!!! I didn’t realize what I was letting myself in for at the time, but I decided to needle felt Aquila’s entire body and turn her into a Bengal cat!
Can you believe this kitty is crocheted underneath all that fancy felting?! Adding needle felted detail to amigurumi is the best way to customize a model with maximum freedom. The possibilities are truly endless and the only limit is your imagination because with needle felting, you can create absolutely any effect, you can make your own colours and you can even build up extra 3D shaping with felting! (I’ll show you how in my new video.)
The only catch is that felting can be very time consuming if you take on a large project. But don’t let that put you off because it doesn’t take long at all to add small details and accents to a small model. I’m only complaining because I felted my whole kitten – who is not that small in ami terms – and had no idea that in needle felting terms, she is a downright behemoth!! So this project took me a whole week to get through but adding a beautiful set of eyes to your amigurumi, for example, could easily be done in one sitting.
Aquila can be completed by crocheting only, you don’t have to do any needle felting to make her. But if you’d like to give it a try, I filmed the entire process to show you how I did it! You can watch the video here. Read on for more info about the project, including tools and supplies…
SUPPLIES
Needle felting is usually done using wool roving, but I struggle to get that where I live, so I make my own roving using the same acrylic yarn that I crochet with. Note that wool roving does work better, it’s easier and faster to felt with, but making your own with acrylic will most likely be cheaper expand your colour options.
To make roving, you’ll brush your acrylic yarn out with a slicker brush, also known as a cat brush, which you can get from most shops that sell pet supplies.
I use cheap, 100% acrylic yarn for making my roving. Thin yarn is more difficult to brush out, so using 8ply or thicker is easier.
Roving is attached to your amigurumi by stabbing at it repetitively with a special burred needle called a felting needle. I only used one size for my project and it worked out okay, but for better results you might decide to hunt around the internet for more technical knowledge on what needles to use. I used fine weight clover needles (the green pack) and the clover felting pen tool which can take up to three needles at a time. You’ll need a felting sponge for some of the pieces and, if you like, a felting brush too (it’s the one that looks like a giant scrubbing brush; I didn’t use one for my cat though).
Click the button below to download the supplies list for felting Aquila, including yarn quantities and colours. Note that these are the felting supplies only. Crocheting supplies are included in the crochet pattern. Watch my video to see how I used these to turn Aquila the Kitten into a Bengal cat.
The following pictures show the rough fur plan I drew onto Aquila before I started felting her. Feel free to use these for reference if they’ll help you:
Let me know if you’re going to be trying this project! If you do, remember to post pics and tag me @Projectarian, I’d love to see! Use #AquilaTheKitten to share your WIPs and browse others’ (you can use these tags on Facebook too). Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you in Aquila’s CAL.
xxx
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