Needle felting is a great way to experiment with felting and add a unique touch to your finished knit and crochet projects. All you need to get started is some kind of foam block so you won’t hurt your hands and some roving which is wool that hasn’t been spun. It’s simple and you can actually use yarn. You can use small pieces of yarn if you like, or to cover more area, you’ll want to purchase some wicking at your local yarn store.
Take your woven object and place a piece of wick on top of your weave and place the foam block below. You will also need a special needle called a felting needle that has small barbs on one end and a slightly bent end to hold onto. Be careful, the spikes are very, very sharp. When you use the needle to pull through the wick on your knitted piece, basically the barbs make the wool sit.
The barbs attract the wool and compact it holding it together like felt when you accidentally shrink a sweater in the washing machine, only this time you’re doing it without soap and water. For this reason, needle felting is also called dry felting.
Take your felting needle and repeatedly pull it up and down through the wick and your woven item down into the foam below. Now please be careful with your fingers because even though they don’t look very sharp, if you prick yourself it will hurt a lot so I’m sure you’ll probably do it once and once only.
First, you will need to affix the wick cap until it is firmly in place. Then, to make smaller details, you can twist the piece of yarn, wind it up if you like, and place it over the top of your knitting and just poke your needle in and out of the knitting until snug. Give your needle felted design a tug to make sure it is securely attached to your fabric. You’ll also want to check the entire area to make sure it’s secure.
Some ideas of things you could make with felt are: It’s always fun to make little snowflakes out of felt. You can just take a piece of white thread and cut it into six little pieces and then the needle felt a bit start to put one piece of thread and then another across it and then another at an angle and then make little arrows for the tips of the snowflake Just make sure, especially around the edges, that you poke the felting needle in a lot of times so it’s really secure.
People also like to make sheep out of felt. Those can be a fun addition to saying some slippers or socks you’ve made. There really is no limit to the designs you can make. Just make sure you use 100 percent wool because anything else won’t feel through. Acrylic fibers do not have the same ability to felt.
You can also needle felt over other felt. For example, if you have made a felt bag, felt purse, felt slippers, you can take a small piece of yarn or a contrasting thread or some wick and make a small swirl design. You can make a flower. You can make a snowflake, whatever you want. You can even put someone’s name. Let’s say you want to make them a pair of slippers for the house. You can needle felt their name using a piece of wool yarn. It really depends on your imagination, so have fun!
