Making Needle Felted Plush

When starting in needle felting it can be a little cheaper than some other crafts. I know in bear making I've spent $100s on mohair fur and supplies. Thankfully needle felting supplies are a lot cheaper & so anyone can get started :)

So you maybe asking you're self now "Why are finished needle felted items so expensive?" Well the one down side to needle felting is the time involved. While the supplies maybe reasonable, needle felting takes lots of work. I've spent up to a year working on a large needle felted soft sculpture, to get all the details I wanted. Needle felting projects can take days, weeks or months to complete, depending on what the item is.

A great kit from clover (sorry clover's kit is no longer available, but they do have wool)CLICK HERE Kits are a great way to get started. This Kit gets you started with great colors of wool & some needles.

First what you need:

Felting needles
These can be found online and range in size from 36g to 40g remember when working with gauges larger numbers = smaller needles. So a 40g is the smallest and what's called a "fine" needle for small detailed work. I've seen 42g needles before but never used them. I get my needles HERE They sale all the sizes of needles in 10 or 50 packs.

Wool
The type of wool you use it up to you. I use mostly Merino & Mohair wool but there are tons of others out there. Start with just a few basic colors, white, black and so on. You can normally find a "kit" that comes with a few colors of wool to get you started. Also think about what you want to make. If your making a dog then you don't really need a lot of odd colors like green & purple! A good basic color Kit

Foam Pad
This can be a cut piece of pillow form foam pad. You can find this online or at any hobby & art supply store. Some "kits" will also come with foam. Or you can buy a needle felting mat made by clover Link
Clover also makes a number of other needle felting supplies.

Wire
You can use wire for the "base" or armature of your sculpture, also pipe cleaners work well. You can also make a "soft sculpture" for under your wool for larger projects. I do wire armatures under my small animals sample
And I do soft sculptures under anything 5" or larger Sample

Other items you may need
Hand carders for blending the wool. You can also use two slicker pet brushes that you can find at any pet store. This is what I use & it works well!

Dyes
This is if you want to dye your own wool. It's so much easier to buy wool already dyed & it saves a lot of time.

Glass Eyes
If you plan to use glass eyes with your sculpture. I use glass eyes on my smaller animals Sample
But needle felt the eyes on my larger sculptures. Some people even paint the eyes on!

Paint
Some people like to use paint to add detail so this is up to you

So I've talked about the felting needle a little bit. I wanted to add a more detailed information about the felting needle.
For a great close up Click Here
The pictures gives you a little better idea about the needle it's self.

The first use of felting needles in this manner that we know of was in the early 1980's by artisans David & Eleanor Stanwood who used a woolen mill industry tool on a small scale and began needle felting by hand. There is some conflicting information here, some other people claim to be the first needle felters. Felting needles are original used in large machines to make felt one of the oldest textiles.

Needles come in a lot of different sizes. Again the size is by gauge so the larger the needle the smaller the number, for example a 40g is the smaller needle and a 32g is larger. Most felting needles are triangular in shape but there are others which are four sided (called star).

They are all extremely SHARP!!! and I must warn you, you WILL poke yourself. But don't worry the more needle felting you do the less likely you are to poke yourself. I sometimes where leather thimbles on my fingers if I'm holding something small. Cover also makes this nice little tool for holding down wool LINK It works really well on smaller things plus it has an end on it that cleans the cover needle felting mat.

Felting Needles are fragile! You can insert a needle from any angle into the wool roving and you must remove it in the same angle. If you attempt to change your angle between this movement into the wool and out of the wool you are going to break your needle. But don't worry felting needle are pretty cheap so buy a few when you start. I normally buy my needle in packs of 10 or more. I always keep more of the size I like and the 40g because they seam to break more. Be careful when working over a wire armature because if the needle hits the wire it will break.

I normally get my needles here
Needle felting holders are nice to have too for larger areas. This is a tool that holds more than one needle at a time and makes for faster felting.
Felting Needle Tool Cover makes two sizes, both of which I have and love. But I'm not too crazy about the needles that come with them. The are really large needles for flat no detailed work. So I just change the needles out to the size I like. Pen Style Needle Felting Tool

For one of the best online felting tutorial CLICK HERE

First I would like to clear up any confusion on needle felting & wet felting.
There's a lot of types of crafts out there that are calling themselves felting right now. There's needle felting, like I talked about above, which is nothing like wet felting at all. There is also the type of felting that people refer to where you knit first and then you throw your knitting in the washer and dryer and full/fluff it. People call that knitted felt or felted knitting. Technically that's not felting at all because all you're doing is fulling and shrinking your knitting. Wet felting is creating felt from scratch. The traditional way that's probably been done for up to five thousand years.

You first lay out your individual fibers of wool (think like in a sheet). You then add a hot soapy water on top. I like to work in the sink so I can always get hot water when I need it, or you can work on plastic wrap. Once you add the hot soapy water the soap acts as a lubricant and a wetting agent so that really helps the water get into the surface of the wool thoroughly. You can even buy "felt soap" which is great but I normally use dish soap. The hot soap also helps the fibers swell up, and there's a special characteristic on the surface of the wool that allows it to stick together and make felt. You basically add layers of the wool to get the thickness you want & rub in a circular motion unlit you are happy with the thickness. Continue to work the felt on the second side. Rinse the felt with hot water. You can continue to work the felt as before (this is called 'fulling') as much or as little as you wish. It will continue to become denser & thicker. Finally, rinse with cool water (make sure all the soap is rinsed out, as it will damage the wool over time). Dry flat & your done!

Once you've made your felt piece you can then needle felt with it, make scarfs or a number of other things. I've seen people who also make strong felt beads this way for jewelry!

Here is a great site with step by step pictures CLICK HERE