Kay Backstrom has been needle felting with a sense of humor since 2009. She’s pictured here modeling her felted devil horns.
When Kay Backstrom became interested in making stained glass art more than a decade ago, she signed up for a class to learn the basics.
She selected a challenging first project and was cautioned against it by the instructor, but Backstrom, 42, of Saranac, was undeterred.
“I didn’t even finish the class,” she said, explaining that once she has the gist of a new craft she’s very comfortable experimenting on her own.
At her dining room table, Backstrom started making stained glass lawn ornaments featuring faces with “big lips and crazy hair.”
In 2009 someone mentioned needle felting – a technique where a barbed needle is used to connect one piece of wool to another – which inspired Backstrom to buy a starter kit on Etsy. “And then I went a little crazy,” she said.
“I remember it being really difficult to do anything at first,” Backstrom said. “You have to learn to work the wool.”
And so she did.
And before long she was selling little sculptural needled-felted projects next to her stained glass art.
“I was making flower necklaces for little girls — bunny necklaces for little girls, hair stuff,” she said.
Her crafty life was going great until she nearly severed her left pinkie finger during a freak accident while attempting to step off her father’s pontoon boat in 2010. Her finger got stuck in the boat gate as she was attempting to get off the boat, causing extensive damage that required reconstructive surgeries and months of recovery time.
“I was wrapped up and had pins and casts,” Backstrom recalled following the accident when she was unable to craft. The injury marked the unplanned end of her stained glass art.
After she recovered, she put all her effort into needle felting and her creations slowly evolved from basic sculptural pieces and whimsical woodland creatures to detailed finger puppets and life-like wool sculptures of people’s pets.
To create her dog sculptures, Backstrom works from photos and spends several days sculpting the wool. For best results, Backstrom requests photos of the dogs from all angles and notes that she often shares a moment of levity with customers when she asks: “Can you give me a butt shot?”
Her dog sculptures sell for $125 and many are ordered as memorials for deceased pets.
“The dogs really challenge my skills,” Beckstrom said. “People usually cry when they get them, so I know I got it right in the end.”
Beckstrom, who trained to work as a medical assistant, admits that she doesn’t like to follow other people’s directions. But she does make a point to craft with a sense of humor. When asked to model her felted devil horns during an impromptu photo shoot at the Fulton Street Artisans Market, she quickly obliged.
“My husband still has aspirations of me working in a doctor’s office,” she said with a sly smile, noting that she’s rather be sculpting a finger puppet – stabbing a barbed needle repeatedly into wool batting.
And while one might assume that it would be challenging to generate a serious income creating fluffy clouds raining jewels, hot pink flamingos, dog sculptures and super cute finger puppets, Backstrom’s designs are fun and growing in popularity.
The great thing about Backstrom’s finger puppets is that they can be displayed as art when not in use. Each $22 puppet comes perched on a dowel in the middle of a little scene. From space aliens to expressive koala bears, the finger puppets are fun works of art the kids can play with and then display in their rooms.
Backstrom mounts her sculptural pieces onto a birch bark bases for a distinctive woodland look and easy display.
Backstrom said she likes needle felting because it fits into her schedule as the mother of an 8-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son.
“It’s just really relaxing for me to do it and very challenging at some points,” she said.
“The dogs really challenge my skills. I’m going to try horses. That’s my next challenge that I’m looking forward to.”
Learn more about Kay Backstrom
Check out Backstrom’s online shop at FingerStuckFelts.etsy.com and look for her on occasional Sundays at the Fulton Street Artisan’s Market at 1147 E. Fulton Ave. NE in Grand Rapids.
Email Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood at jennifer@craftsanity.com or send story ideas to P.O. Box 888192, Grand Rapids, MI 49588. Read Jennifer’s blog at craftsanity.com. Follow @CraftSanity on Twitter and Instagram and check out the latest edition of CraftSanity Magazine available for download at craftsanity.com.
Article source: http://www.mlive.com/living/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2013/07/west_michigan_crafter_turns_to.html