My first foray into the world of needlefelting

Since learning to spin, I've accumulated a lot of roving. It will take me a long time before I can spin it all... I just got two more pounds of wool! So, I'm learning something new to do with my roving. That new skill is needlefelting.

Needlefelting creates matted mounds of fiber by using a sharp, barbed needle poked repeatedly into the fiber. Normally you use wool, but other fibers can be needle felted too. As opposed to wet felting, which can only be done with animal hair fibers, you can needle felt other kinds of fiber such as silk and bamboo.

You can either needlefelt flat shapes onto another surface (such as decorating a sweater or a hat), or you can create 3D needle-felted forms. This is my first needlefelted creation, after a little bit of practice:

It's a black panther, which kind of-sort of stands up by itself. You have to adjust the legs or it will fall over. It's hard to make long, thin, detailed things like the legs and tail though. It was fun, but it does take a while to get the wool felted together. My felting needle tool has three needles in one, which makes the felting go a little bit quicker.

The felting needle is sharp... very sharp... Not a good thing for clumsy me ;) But needle felting is definitely a good way to release pent-up anger... just stab, stab, stab the wool to your heart's content! And when you're feeling all calm and relaxed, you'll have a fun needle-felted sculpture. :)

Books on Needle Felting

~Joyuna