Over half the students introduced themselves with doubts over their ability to make the charming needle felted characters on display. Yet, everyone completed multiple projects and left the class grinning like, well, a bunch of silly pumpkins!
We were participating in the Needle Felted Owls and Pumpkins class, a weekend class at the John C Campbell Folk School, with instructor Jodie Graham.
Needle felting, it turns out, isn’t as hard as it looks—at least not at the introductory level. Beginners can start creating with minimal instruction. Another appealing aspect of needle felting is that only a few, inexpensive tools are required. Whatever the reason for its popularity, a little online research reveals a plethora of needle felting kits and online tutorials.
Here’s a very basic explanation of needle felting for those who are new to this intriguing craft. Needle felting is done with wool fibers. You repeatedly stab the fibers with a very sharp, barbed needle to sculpt multi-dimensional figures and objects. The stabbing agitates the fibers so they bond and felt together into the desired shape and design. The texture of the wool changes from loose, individual fibers to a more compact, dense mass. This simple process can result in a variety of outcomes.
Quirky, personable sculptures like these charismatic owls made by our instructor, Jodie Graham, are popular needle felting projects.
Needle felting can also be used to create highly realistic, 3-dimensional figures referred to as “wool sculptures”. Here’s an example of a wool sculpture by artist Terumi Ohta of True Style Lab. The Wolf, as you can see from the photo, is an ultra-realistic animal sculpture. The fact it’s made by needle felting wool fibers is simply astonishing! A wire armature is used to give it the necessary structure while glass and polymer clay are used for the eyes, nails, claws, teeth and nose.
Here’s another outstanding example of a needle felted sculpture. The Gentleman Felter places realistic needle-felted figures in mixed media settings to create intriguing works of art. This piece is called Brushing Over the Wildflowers.
Needle felted miniatures are another possibility. Holly Kirby, of Woodlanders, makes the most adorable little creatures. Here’s how she describes her needle felted bears in her online shop “Meet my little needle felted bears. These little bears were made out of wool using the dry needle felting process. They stand between 13cm and 14cm [about 5”] tall from the bottom of their paws to the top of their hats. They have wire structures inside so their arms and legs can be repositioned slightly. They each wear a little hand knitted bobble hat and carry a felt rucksack with leather straps and their very own miniature needle felted teddy tucked inside. All items are unfixed, so rucksack, teddy and hat can be taken off/put back on. They’re not intended to be toys as they’re quite delicate, so please don’t give them to little ones or pets.”
Olha and Hanna Dovhan, the creative sisters behind MANOONI, use needle felting to transform ordinary items, such as vegetables, clouds, hearts and mountains, into extraordinary sculptures. Shown below is their bright, cheerful Baby Sun.
Needle felting can also be used to create 2-dimensional pieces or “wool paintings”. The piece shown below, by artist Eugenya of Wool’s Symphony, is titled Night Bloom. As explained by Eugenya in her Inspire Uplift online shop, “I also like to combine needle felting with hand embroidery and embroidery with beads. A separate direction in my art and a pleasure for me are landscapes with 3D elements, they allow to create a feeling of immersion in the landscape.”
Dani Ives, of Be Good Natured, makes lifelike, needle felted portraits of people, pets, animals, plants and flowers. She’s an award-winning artist, educator and author of the book Painting with Wool: 16 Artful Projects to Needle Felt. Here’s one of Dani Ives’ intricately layered, needle felted portraits.
Mila Mukarska, of Mukarska Workshop, makes outstanding needle felted jewelry including necklaces, earrings and brooches. As she recently shared on Facebook, “Back in 2008, I wanted felt earrings. Seeing the prices and assortment at the time, I decided to do everything myself. Bought some wool, needles and carried away.” She’s been making and selling stunning jewelry like this floral necklace ever since.
Understandably, the pieces we made in our 2-day, beginner workshop weren’t of this caliber. But they were a good introduction to the techniques and great fun to make. Here’s my slightly wonky attempt to make a pumpkin with a “blowing a kiss” emoji face.
Most needle felting projects follow three basic steps: shaping, defining and finishing. There is a myriad of ways to create the basic shape or combination of shapes. For instance, in our class, we made our base shape by simply rolling a ball of core wool with our hands. Core wool, by the way, is typically an undefined mix of coarse and fine wool. It is undyed and less expensive, making it ideal for filling a sculpture or figure.
Alternatively, you could start by tying a knot in a length of core wool and then adding more fiber to make the desired form. Yet another option is to start with sheets of pre-made wool felt to form the desired starting shape. Regardless of the starting point, the basic shape is stabbed repeatedly with a felting needle as wool fibers are added to build up the form to the desired size and shape.
A plumpish sphere was the desired form for our pumpkins. Shown below is the basic shape I made for my second felt pumpkin. I’ve included a real tomato in the photo for comparison.
After creating the basic shapes we covered them with colored wool roving and tied them with wool yarn to resemble the sections of a pumpkin.
Wool roving, which typically comes in a rope-like form, has been carded to force all the wool fibers to run in the same direction. It can be purchased in a variety of colors. Plus, custom colors can easily be created by mixing and blending colors with a set of hand carders. Alternatively, two large pet slicker brushes (visible on the right below) can be used.
After the basic form is ready, you add definition with your major design elements. This meant adding expressive faces to our needle felted pumpkins. First, we selected a side for the face and a position for the eyes. We used a wooden toothpick to roll small amounts of roving into the shape of a nose. Then attached it to the pumpkin with our felting needle. This was followed by lips, chin and cheeks. There was much laughter around the room as the personalities of our pumpkins started to emerge.
While working on my second felt pumpkin, I discovered it was possible to trial my facial features by modeling the felt components and temporarily holding them in place with glass-headed, straight pins. This made it easier to refine their size, shape and placement before attaching them.
I was also able to experiment with a few other techniques such as using fine wire (24-gauge craft wire worked well) to support and shape components such as a handlebar moustache and spiral stem. Another intriguing technique is to create “wool curls” by wrapping wet wool fibers around a knitting needle and letting them dry.
The final step is to add the finishing touches. For instance, some of the finishing touches visible in Jodie’s pumpkin (shown below) are the facial lines, the shape of the nostrils, the darkened inside of the mouth and the wool locks used for hair. But it’s the eyes—their shape, proportion and placement—along with their fine outlines and tiny catch lights that “make” the face.
Part of the fun of needle felting, I’ve learned, is the ease with which you can experiment. As an additive sculpture technique, needle felting enables you to add, remove and change repeatedly. This is in sharp contrast to a subtractive sculpture technique, such as woodcarving, where material is permanently removed. So, my moustached, needle felted pumpkin will continue to evolve.
More Info
Check out my newest Pinterest board, Needle Felting – FanningSparks Favs, with over 150 examples of needle felting from fun figures to wool paintings to hyper-realistic sculptures.
The following needle felting artists are mentioned in this blog post:
. Terumi Ohta of True Style Lab — see True Style Lab website or Instagram account.
. The Gentleman Felter — see their Instagram account.
. Holly Kirby, of Woodlanders — see Woodlanders Online or Instagram account.
. Olha and Hanna Dovhan of MANOONI — see their Etsy shop or Instagram account.
. Eugenya of Wool’s Symphony — see their Inspire Uplift online shop or Instagram account.
. Dani Ives of Be Good Natured — see her website or Instagram account.
. Mila Mukarska of Mukarska Workshop — see her Facebook account or Instagram account.
The Needle Felted Owls and Pumpkins class taught by Jodie Graham was held on an October weekend at the John C Campbell Folk School. Jodie is an experienced needle felting artist and teacher. “She has completed many felted pieces, taught one-on-one classes, and placed second (2019) and third (2021) in the SAFF [Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair] 3-Dimensional Needle Felting competitions.” Jodie was assisted by Gina Myers, a well-known member of the folk school community. Both Jodie and Gina shared their knowledge generously and cheered on the class’s efforts with endless enthusiasm. Special thanks to Jodie, Gina and my fellow students for an enjoyable weekend of needle felting!
The John C Campbell Folk School, as described in the class catalog, “fosters a non-competitive learning environment where adults of all ages, skills and backgrounds learn from one another”. See the John C Campbell Folk School website for more info.
I’m currently participating in a 6-week Work Study Program at the John C Campbell Folk School. This is my third visit to the Folk School where I’ve had the opportunity to take a variety of classes from leathercrafting to basketry to broom making to pottery to woodcarving. I’ve shared these experiences here on the blog—they are all listed on the FanningSparks’ About > Folk School category index.
Today’s Takeaways
1. Needle felting isn’t as hard as it looks—at least not at the introductory level.
2. Needle felting is considered additive sculpture because materials are pieced together to create a multi-dimensional piece of art.
3. Consider investigating the full gamut of possibilities when learning a new craft.
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