Felted Crafts- Needle Felting

What is needle felting?

Needle felting is a fibre arts craft that creates felt without the use of water. A special barbed needle is used to poke into wool fibres repeatedly so that wool fibre interlocks into a more condense material to create an artwork which can be 2 dimensional  or 3 dimensional.

There are 2 types of needle felting:-
Appliqué needle felting: attaching wool yarn, wool felt or wool roving to a flat piece of wool fabric or felt.
Sculptural needle felting: creating a three dimensional piece of felt from wool roving. 

Sculptural Needle Felting

Today I would be introducing sculptural needle felting. I have yet to try Appliqué needle felting and not sure whether I would break my felting needle as a result.

Equipment required:-

• Felting needle
• Wool Roving (of various colours)
• Felting Mat ( I use a sponge )

Basic Tips:

1. Always hold the needle vertically to the surface you want to felt. (When I was in the class, a couple of students broke their needles)
2. Poke in and out of the fibre in a straight line, in and out repeatedly, creating the shape you want to make.
3. Never leave your eyes from the needle when you are felting
4. Watch your fingers carefully when felting small details. ( I pierced my finger as a result due to this mistake)
5. Pick up, rotate and turn your work from side to side so as to prevent it from binding to the sponge or felting mat instead.
6. Different parts of your work can be produced separately (Eg , Body, wings, beak, belly, tail) When the parts are well formed, attach them by felting to the main body.

My first needle felting was done in the library. The library conducted a class on "Felted Flight of Fancies". I spent almost 2 hours on this repeatedly poking the needle into this macaroon and ended piercing my index finger with the felting needle while doing the mini flower decoration on the macaroon. Not to worry, the red part of the macaroon is not my blood but the pierce was deep enough that a drop of blood can be seen oozing out. And yes, it hurt a lot!

My first felted art piece and the barbed felting needle which pierced my finger... Ouch!

After I bought some wool roving, I made this nerdy bird. I did not have black wool so I glue eyes onto it instead, as a result, I think it looks nerdy! This took about 2-3 hours. 

Nerdy Bird

Have you tried needle felting? What have you felted?

I have yet to see any felted work in sale in Singapore, if you have seen any, please advise where you have seen it. I would love to pop down to have a look.

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