Felting Tips

If you are planning to take up needle felting, please read these important safety tips. Needle felting is not for the faint of heart or the careless. Ok, I’m a little careless… Do as I say, not as I do!

• Keep needles away from young children. Obviously… Sharp objects and little people don’t mix.

• Always be watchful of your fingers. The needles are very sharp and slightly brittle. A couple of weeks after I got my first multi-needle tool, I landed myself in the ER with a piece of needle embedded in my thumb. You can see the x-rays here. I’m not trying to scare you, just don’t watch CSI while enthusiastically poking away at something very small with a 12=needle tool. Really… I mean it.

• Keep some rubbing alcohol handy. Even if you are being careful, odds are you will still give yourself the occasional non-ER-type poke. You may even want to clean the needle before you start. Then, if you poke yourself, just say a bad word or two, clean your finger and bravely continue felting.

• Another felter I know cautions her students: Don’t share needles. This is probably good advice, especially if you felt with strangers.

• Always place your needle in the foam block when you stop felting. Make it a habit! The last thing you want to do is misplace a needle only to locate it later with your right buttock. No, I have no personal experience with this but it doesn’t take much imagination.

• Be sure to bring the needle out of the felt AT THE SAME ANGLE it entered. Otherwise, you risk breaking your needle. It happens. I don’t break them often, but it still happens occasionally. If you do break a needle, find the broken piece and dispose of it. This is also something you don’t want to find later with the aforementioned right buttock.

General Felting Tips:

• Poke into but not through the wool. The goal is to compress the fibers, not push them out the other side.

• While shaping, don’t spend too much time poking one place. Instead, try to poke evenly all over. Once you’re happy with the general shape, concentrate on areas that should be indented. Otherwise, you may end up with a lopsided item.

• When working on foam, be sure to pull the piece up every few pokes or you may attach it so well that you take a chunk out of your foam and never ever, ever, EVER get it all out of your felting. Or so I’m told.

• If you decide you love felting, try lots of different types of wool and sizes of needle. You’ll be amazed at the differences. I’m a fan of merino wool and the medium star (38 gauge) needle.

• If your piece is overly fuzzy, you can trim the extreme flyaways off with scissors or try needling across the surface.  You can also use a little hairspray that doesn’t dry sticky.
  

I would love to see your attempts at needle felting.  If you have photos, please post a link in the comments.