Work-A-Long

The Feltie Factory

Curious Kitty invites you to gather some creative inspiration every day. This is the primary reason for our work-a-long projects.

BEWARE: Work-a-long projects are can be serious, in-depth projects. You can choose to follow the steps to the basic piece, or go for the full project. These will take time, practice, and dedication. They will also result in a product you will be so proud of you'll want to show off everywhere - and result in a new skill that you can sell the products of.

Each work-a-long takes its own amount of time, usually 2 weeks or longer for the full guide to be posted. New pieces to the work-a-long will be posted every day. This allows Curious Kitty to continue being curious in other things (and get paid work done, of course) and it allows you to do a bit of creative work on your own time.

Once a work-a-long is complete, it will be available for exactly one week from its completion date. After this date (which is noted at the end of the guide), it will be retired from the site, formatted into a deliciously digestible download, and offered for sale. You will soon be able to find completed work-a-longs in the Library.


Our debut work-a-long project: The Feltie Factory

Our debut work-a-long project will teach several vital skills to 'making it' in the crafting world:
  • Conceiving a character
  • Conceiving packaging
  • Developing character patterns
  • Sewing and embellishing characters
  • Finalizing packaging
  • Finishing professional touches
To achieve this, we're going to be working with an ever-loved and 'hot' item: felties. Slowly swiping through the pages of a book of how-to-make felties always leaves me with this sense of longing. I want to make those babies. But I know I can do it myself! I can!

So, we're going to start out with brainstorming ideas on how we want our felties to look and some basic ideas on their packaging, actually develop printable (and constantly reusable - or sellable!) patterns, documenting and then writing out how-to steps on selling and embellishing your character, and then we finally end with making sure our packing brainstorms still work as we carry them out and add the little touches which set these felties apart from the 'blah' crowd.

The Concept: Felties are once again receiving a mass boom in popularity - especially if you're in favor of the macabre and can imagine awesome skeletons and zombies. Monsters (think cute!) are always popular, and you can never go wrong with cute. But the feltie alone isn't what makes the project or process amazing. It's going through the steps to create something that you can sell - either the finished felties, the pattern to create them, or both. OR dream bigger! Imagine a full set of feltie friends and create them in the fully professional way we'll tackle them, and you can create a book for self or professional publishing considerations.

Basic Materials: You will need:
  • Sketch Paper. Lots of it.
  • Pens, pencils, colored pencils, whatever you like to draw brainstorms with and write notes with - and um ... plenty of them. Make sure 1 is a permanent marker or other very strong black marker with a fine enough point that you can draw or trace with it easily.
  • Art Card Stock
  • Acid-Free Tissue Paper
  • Computer Scanner or Digital Camera with Scan Function (You'll need a digital camera regardless)
  • Photoshop or compatible software like GIMP.
  • Printer
  • Craft Knife
  • Metal Ruler
  • Scissors
  • Beeswax
  • Needles and Linen Thread
  • Flexible Glue (any craft glue that is transparent and allows re-positioning)
  • Embellishments, card stocks, papers, and other elements as required by your chosen project
This materials list has been provided at least 2 weeks in advance so that you can prepare to work-a-long as soon as we get going.


What Curious Kitty Will Be Providing: Full, step-by-step instructions illustrated with photos, graphics, and videos. Also provided will be specific templates for the specific project being made in the work-along and free printable tools to help you in your own endeavors.

Feltie Kits: If you would like to purchase a ready-to-go kit containing all the materials needed and a printed version of the guide with re-usable templates, Curious Kitty is happy to help. The kit will become available shortly after the second step is provided. It will continue to be available for the same price after the work-a-long has been completed. Full kit details and images to come.
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