For your amusement, I present Wurmple, a Pokémon caterpillar, or “Murple” as the boy calls him (it?) made out of Sculpey. It looks complicated but it wasn’t that hard. Playing with clay dough with the kids over the last few years has really developed my ability to make recognizeable three dimensional objects!
Anyway, this did not come about without some reluctance on my part. I was vaguely aware of the game/trading cards, etc. for a long time but did really know anything about it. At the beginning of the school year a letter from the school reminded parents that children were not to bring these trading cards to school. Seemed like a good enough reason not to have them at all. Of course they make it onto the bus and the playground anyway. The boy would make reference to Pokémon occasionally but did not seem too interested until he started talking about “Murple”, a butterfly Pokémon and asking me to find a picture. (He knows all about Google Images). He’s been interested in caterpillars and butterflies for a long time so I thought maybe it was time to pay a little more attention.
It was easy enough to find the Pokémon website but not so easy to find a butterfly named “Murple”. But we did find him and his real name and the fact that he was actually a caterpillar that changes into a cocoon and then into a butterfly . . . with a different name. Yes, it’s confusing. And I learned a bit more about the whole phenomenon and decided that maybe the core idea wasn’t so bad after all. Along the way I printed out a number of other Pokémon for the boy. I used it as a way to encourage him to sound out the names. Kind of hard because some of the names are pretty weird. But apparently pretty motivating. Eventually he asked me to make a “Murple” out of clay. Eek. I really didn’t want to tackle it but he did ask nicely. You know the rest.
This is that wild idea I had yesterday in the shower. It’s certainly a compilation of inspirations from various sources. I’m sure other people have already done this but I’ve never seen any. I did these little samples and they turned out just how I thought, I love when that happens. The first set are meant to look like rocks with either veins of some precious metal in them or maybe lichens, however you choose to interpret. The second set are just vibrant colors for fun. These are soap chunks that I wrapped and felted wool around. The veins of color are wool and/or silk. Wow, that silk is amazing stuff Annie! The best method so far seems to be to wrap the soap snugly in thin layers of roving and then needle felt it quickly with the 
Then a quick squishy bath to really set the felt. They lather really well. Maybe too well, I don’t know how fast the soap will disappear. I started with chunks of unscented glycerin melt-and-pour because that’s what I have. I think something harder would be better. What would be really nice would be some of TheJen’s baby soap. Maybe I can get her to share the recipe. (hint, hint) Cool, I get to use the “fiber” tag, lol.
Ever since I first sewed the 
