At the 2024 ArtServe festival, Michelle Pickering led a workshop on needle felting, where she taught the fundamentals, and enabled participants to create their own little bee, Christmas bauble, or similar small item.
In this article she shares some tips and tricks, and offers suggestions and recommendations for where to find resources such as needles, felting wool, and instructions.
Introduction
Thank you to everyone who came to the needle felting workshops at the 2024 ArtServe festival, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. The finished pieces were fabulous and really showed that you’d all mastered the fundamentals, so hopefully you’ll go on to create more beautiful things.
A few people asked where I buy my needles and felting wool, so I’ve added some details below. I’m sure there are other great suppliers, but these are the ones I use. I have found them to be good value, excellent quality, super reliable, and provide great customer service. They are small, and thankfully growing, independent businesses, so it feels good to be able to support them.
Before the list of suppliers though, I thought it would be useful to pass on a few tips that I’ve learned since starting on this absorbing and enjoyable craft.
I hope you find this resource and tip sheet helpful! Happy needle felting!
Tips and tricks
There’s often more than one way to achieve the same thing, so if you find a way that works better for you, stick with it. These techniques are how I have been taught in workshops, or picked up from websites and books.
To speed up the initial felting process, for example, when you’re starting with a clump of wool and want to make it into a ball, you can add a little pure lanolin to your hands when you starting rolling it together. I haven’t used this, and I’m not sure what it would smell like(!), but many felters find it useful. The tip I have used is to use hand cream, rubbed in loosely to your hands, to help bond small bits of wool into particular shapes, for example, eyes, beaks, thin rolls for cup handles, etc. And this makes the wool smell lovely!
Try and buy the best quality wool you can afford, as it does make the felting process easier and gives a nicer finish. Same goes for felting needles. They are very delicate, and the cheaper ones do break more easily.
Try to do the stabby-stabby action in a straight vertical angle to the wool and the mat (90 degrees), as this will protect the needle and your fingers. Some felters find the needle multi tool easier to hold, or even adding a shaft to a single needle. The same care needs to be taken when felting, as the needles can still break easily.
If you’re felting a flattish shape within a template or cookie cutter, remember to turn your work over regularly so it doesn’t felt itself to the mat. This also gives a neat finish on both sides. If you forget, it is possible to tease it out carefully, so don’t despair! You can use a protective layer, for example, thin baking paper, to help avoid this, but you will still need to turn the piece to avoid altogether.
UHU or PVA glue are good for sticking eyes into felted pieces, for example, the plastic eyes on sticks. Don’t add too much, or it will clump around the surface of the felt.
At the workshops we used triangular felting needles in a medium size. These are the standard felting needle shape and the medium size is a good ‘all-rounder’ and are good for shaping finer fibres. Some of you used the large size needles for speeding up the initial shape/structure. The larger needles sometimes feel like they don’t go through the wool that easily, and it may be that they are too course for the particular fibre you’re using.
Types of wool
Which leads on nicely to the types of wool available. I use basic core wool in cream for shaping and adding bulk to larger pieces. This wool is from off-cuts of wool batts so comes in pieces. It doesn’t look as glamourous as some of the other wools, but it is exceptionally useful and it is cheaper than the dyed felting wools.
There are other coarse, carded wools, which still feel fairly thick. I tend to use Corriedale wool which has a micron count of between 25 and 35. The fibres of this wool are again shorter, like the basic core wool, which helps them felt quicker. It comes in a whole range of wonderful colours.
Fine wools, like Merino, have a lower micron count (around 18), but feel gorgeous. They take longer to felt, and they useful for adding embellishments and features to felted pieces. The wool I buy is carded into long silky lengths, so you’ll be able to tell it easily from the other wools.
Speciality fibres are great for adding detail and special effects, like the Angelina fibres, sari silk tops and Wensleydale locks – great for adding texture to a felted sheep!
If you can’t find the exact colour of wool you want, you can have a go at carding your own. Carders are basically two wooden rectangles with sharp ‘combs’ made of hooked wire pins on one side, and a handle to hold on the other. You ‘card’ the wool between two of these plates. There’s plenty of tutorials on YouTube to watch before to have a go yourself.
Other tips
If you find that you prick your fingers frequently when felting, you can buy leather or metal finger guards. I think it’s a bit like sewing with a thimble – works for some, but not for others.
You can cover your foam felting pad with hessian, which will extend its life. And there are other felting mat options, which you’ll see from the websites below.
If you want to add whiskers to a felted animal, I use horsetail hair. If any of you have friends who play a stringed instrument, they may be kind enough to give you their broken strings, which would be ideal.
Polystyrene shapes are useful to use as the basis of different basic shapes, which you can felt directly on to. Wool dryer balls are useful as a larger sphere shapes, although these are weightier.
Suppliers and other resources
These are the online companies I use.
The Crafty Kit Company
21 High Street, East Linton, EH40 3AA – tel: 01620 860907
The Crafty Kit Company | Fabulous Craft Kits & Supplies
Jo runs regular free workshops on Facebook, advertised on the Craft Your Way to Happiness public Facebook group, which are great fun. The products from this company are excellent, and it was the Advent Calendar last year that kick-started my needle felting journey. I have since bought wool, kits, embroidery threads, needles and accessories from this company, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.
The Makerss
Unit 17A Nailsworth, Mills Estate, Avening Road, Stroud, GL6 0BS – tel: 01453 839454
The Makerss | Needle Felt Kits, Books, Supplies, Tutorials & Workshops
I have bought wool, needles, separate downloadable PDF instructions for felted pieces, and kits from this company. The quality is wonderful across the whole range.
Their private Facebook group The Makerss Flock provides another lovely community of crafters to share tips and what they make. This is a good way to hear of new products, and attendance at upcoming shows across the country.
The World of Wool
Their mill and production location is in Yorkshire, although I believe you can only order online (or by phone, if you have the list of items needed).
Facebook page
I tend to buy just wool from this company, rather than kits. It’s more my preference, so I can’t comment on the quality or value of the kits. Most of the wool used at the festival was from this company, although wools from both The Makerss and Craft Your Way to Happiness also featured!