Thursday, March 6, 2008

Needle Felting Tutorial

Now I don't profess to be an expert on this, but Louise asked if needle felting was hard, so I'm going to show you how I do it. I didn't use an armature on Hyacinth, but I am using one here for this dog. Cut two pieces of pipe cleaner 4" long and one piece 3 1/2" long. Bend them into the shapes shown.
It should end up looking like this. See, two leg parts and one head/body/tail part.

Now twist the leg parts around the body part.


With a few bends in the right places it's already starting to look like a dog. It almost takes on a life of its own.

"Bad dog, stop that! Don't embarrass me in front of the nice ladies."




Now take a piece of roving about 5" long and starting at the hip, wrap it around the leg working down to the foot. At the foot turn and start wrapping back up the leg.





Now a word about the needles. I'm just a beginner and only have two needles. I don't know anything about size or type, and even with my little pink glasses, I can't see the barbs, but apparently there are barbs on these wickedly sharp things that sort of "tangle" the fibers together. The barbs are up a ways from the tip so you have to poke the needle through the fibers at least 1/2" to make the magic happen.
Now start poking through the leg from all angles to secure the fibers. Try to avoid poking the pipe cleaner because that's bad for the needle. You can use the foam block to work on the little parts, or if you're brave and like blood, hold it in your hand. Because I guarantee, sooner or later, you will poke yourself. And like I said these things are WICKEDLY sharp. So be careful if you work in hand.
Repeat that routine on all the legs, then do the tail and head and maybe two layers on the body. Your dog should eventually look like that bad dog's sister here.
By the way, she is quite well behaved and would never embarrass me in front of you nice ladies.
So this is the first part of making a felted dog. Tomorrow we'll start the details and work on house training here Amongst The Oaks.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

HOW CUTE! I don't even mind a bad dog when they are as cute as that.
I've thought needle felted animals were cute, but never thought it could be so easy. Then again, you make everything look easy!
xo Karen

Jenn Thorson said...

The captioning alone was totally worth the visit, Laura! :) Hope you're doing well. -Jenn

Anonymous said...

Hey mom~! yeah i remember that you did use a pipe cleaner body on Hyacinth!
and that's a funny dog too!
>w<
~teen2

Brenda said...

Thank you so much for the tutorial I have been looking every where on the internet to find instructions .By the way Hyacinth is just adorable.
Brenda

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Nice lesson, Laura! You make it look so easy, and I'm interested to see how it turns out.

Thanks for commneting my blog today.

Hugs, Pat

Tara said...

I love this--thanks for the tutorial! I may give it a try! Loved learning that here!
:0)
Tara

Louise said...

Hi Laura, thanks for the link. This tutorial is great, I was trying to imagine one starting off as a pipe cleaner. I think even I could get as far as this, I have zero patience. I am really looking forward to the next step, hopefully not back into a doggy doodah though, they do look as if they need a little house training! x

kari and kijsa said...

What a fabulous project!

Have a blessed day!

smiles, kai & kijsa

Darlene said...

Just found your blog. Great tutorial!!! Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

Just ran into this while looking for needle felting tutorials. I just picked it up...well not even picked it up yet. I am ordering needles today and my aunt who runs an alpaca farm is giving me a bunch of her extra alpaca fleece :D Anyways, just wanted to say I love your little tutorial!! I think I am going to make my MIL a min pin because she has two and she is obsessed with min pin stuff! Thanks for giving me a good start to a new hobby!!