Needle felting for St. Patricks Day

Today instead of cards, I made this candle mat using the Cricut to cut all the shapes out of card stock to use as patterns. I used wool felt for the shamrocks in 3 colors and they cannot be cut out successfully with the Cricut.

On page 30 of the Designer"s Calendar booklet, the larger 4 leaf clover is cut at 3" shadow and then cut the clover so it would layer over the shadow. Alternating clovers were cut at 2 1/2" in shadow and clover. I did not use any fusible web but just layered them and started stitching.

The machine I use is special because it does not use any thread but has 5 special barbed needles to mesh the fibers together so no other stitching is needed to keep the fabrics together. To hold the backing on, I used fusible web and then used a stitch from my regular sewing machine to go around the edge and trimmed the green felt 1/8" from the stitching.
I did have trouble using the regular white felt because it was slightly thinner and did distort the original shape but I had run out of the white wool felt large enough for the project which is about 12". A closeup of the shamrocks that is very quick to make.

Candle Mat

Before Valentine's day, I created this candle mat, done with cuts from the Cricut. I did use the Gypsy for the sizing of the hearts which were cut from 4 colors of wool.
I used the Cricut to cut the hearts out of fusible web then fused to the back of the wool and then cut the hearts out. I didn't want to put the wool through the Cricut because of the fibers were too fuzzy and would create a problem on the mat and harder to clean.
The white background pattern was also created on the Gypsy by welding 4 hearts together and then traced on the wool. After fusing the hearts, I felted them onto the background but then used a applique stitch around the largest heart. The cuts were from the Sweetheart cartridge. I tried to use the scallop heart for the largest heart but even at 3" there were too many scallops to show up on the final heart. After I felted the hearts, I stitched onto a piece of wool felt and cut about a quarter inch larger.