Needle Felting Basics

What the heck is needle felting?  This is a question, I asked myself recently as I began a new crafting journey. To help you out, here’s a beginner’s guide for needle felting. It’s all the basics and everything you need to know to get started. Happy felting!

How I Got Started…

While browsing around at my local craft store, I stumbled upon a kit to make some felted animals. So $20 later, I was at home trying to figure out how to transform wool into little fuzzy animals by stabbing it with a needle.

It took me forever to get the first animal done. I started with a cat, that ended up looking more like a wolf to me and a squirrel to everyone else. I quickly figured, I must be doing something wrong. So it was off to the interwebs to find out more about needle felting.

Surprisingly, while you can find several videos and demos on youtube, there’s not a lot out there explaining needle felting. So through piecing different bits of information together, here’s what I’ve learned. 

What is Felting?

Although it’s an ancient form of textile art that’s been around for centuries, it’s starting to pick up some momentum in mainstream crafting. Prior to weaving and spinning, Felting artists or Fiber artists interlock different animal hairs together, using pressure and sometimes moisture. 

Before the creation of woven fabrics, felted fabrics were made by stacking layers of fiber and applying pressure, whether by beating the fibers with sticks or using animals to compress the fibers together. This resulted in large swaths of heavy fabric that would be used to create clothing and home goods – yurts, rugs, etc…

Felting Evolution

Through time and experiment, textile art has evolved. Here are some explanations of the different techniques:

Wet Felting – traditional form of making felt using water to help bond the fiber layers together. 

Nuno Felting – sometimes known as fabric felting, was developed in the 1990s. A process of using wet felting and bonding it to a lighter woven fabric, like silk to create a more flexible or free-flowing fabric that is typically used in fashion.

Needle Felting – the art of using needles to repeatedly poke fibers to bond them together – also called stabbing. Typically used to create fabric sculptures, felt appliques and other forms of textile art.

How Does Felting Work?

Wool fiber or animal hair is coated in microscopic flat scales. When multiple fibers are layered on top of each other, each fiber’s scales naturally point in different directions.  When you agitate the fibers or apply pressure, the scales come into contact with each other and lock into place.

Since the scales are so small, when you go through the process of agitating or poking the wool, hundreds of scales are locking together. This mass fiber locking causes the wool to felt together.

What Do You Need?

To get started with Needle Felting, you’ll need a few supplies. In most cases, you’ll need to visit local yarn shops or search online for the supplies. There’s not a lot of demand yet, so most craft stores don’t keep felting supplies in stock. I learned this the hard way.

Wool Roving – this is the basis of felting. After the sheep wool is shaved off, the wool is cleaned and carded, this is a mechanical process that combs the fibers. This results in a continuous web of fibers that can be spun into yarn or used in textile art.

Stabbing Tools

Felting Needles – these are special needles with little barbs. The barbs help pull the wool together allowing the scales to come into contact with other. There are different sizes of needles that can be used to perform different tasks in felting. One needle can be used for very detailed work.

Felting Tool – this little tool holds several needles at once and helps agitate the wool quicker. This is great if you need to work with larger sections of wool roving and also bonds the wool very tightly together.

Safety Items

Felting Cushion – when felting, you need to have something to cushion the needle as you stab through the wool. Working on a hard surface can break the needles, so a thick foam pad works well. I use a burlap gift bag filled with rice, the needle passes through the holes of the burlap and are cushioned by the rice – it’s like a giant pin cushion. 

Thimbles – this is optional, but may be a good purchase for beginners. Felting can be tricky at first and until you get the motion down, this prevents a wayward needle from pricking your finger. 

How To Needle Felt

Here comes the fun part! Pull apart some of the roving and roll or fold it over. Then place it on your felting cushion. With the felting needle start stabbing downward into the wool and towards the cushion. Never stab horizontally towards your fingers – you’re likely to stab yourself in the hand or prick a finger.

Make sure to flip the wool over or you will end up attaching your wool right to the felting cushion. Keep stabbing and moving the wool around to mold the wool into a shape.

For larger areas and a tighter bond, use the felting tool. For finer, detailed areas, use a single needle. Once you have a basic shape down, start adding other shapes and even different colors and you’re on your way to be becoming a fiber artist.

Resources

Need more help? For some additional info on felting check out these sites:

• Bear Creek Felting – great resource for learning to felt and provides felting kits – complete with needles, wool, cushion and directions to get you felting quickly.
• Sarafina Fiber Art Inc– Sara Renzulli is an awesome fiber artist that has amazing tutorials and supplies to help inspire and teach you needle felting. Make sure to check out her youtube channel. 
• Shayda Campbell – really nice blog of a well-rounded artist. Shayda has some felting tutorials, but a wealth of knowledge and information in other craft areas, like watercolor, illustrations and free printables. She’s also the one that taught me to create a separate mold (yarn – but I use polyester fiber fill – stuffing) inside a felting project, to save on wool roving.