Watch Out, I’m Needle Felting!

Back in March I shared my adventures in creating felted Easter eggs. First, I tried and failed. Then I re-tried and (sort of) succeeded. At the time, I only tried wet felting, for a few reasons. I didn’t have the special tool required for needle felting back then. Plus, it seemed more kid-friendly to me. Because, hello, scary needle felting tool! However, as it turns out, I was wrong.

Although, when you see the first felting tool I purchased you can understand why I felt it was definitely not suitable for preschoolers.

Close-up of the scary Waldorf-inspired needle felting tool I originally bought

My good friend and inspiration in all things fibre-related, Kirsten, assured me that needle felting could be done by 4-year-olds. And then we set up a needle felting session with a few of our mutual friends at my house. Kirsten brought her fabulous hand-dyed supplies along, so we had a wonderful woolly rainbow of materials to choose from. My friends all bought felting tools at the local yarn store, along with handy felting mats, and I discovered that theirs were both less scary and much easier to use than my tool. But even with my tool needle felting was much simpler than I expected – it only took me a few minutes to complete my first project, a felted egg.

Commercial, not-so-scary needle felting tool with handy locking guard

My felted egg

My 4-year-old Hannah saw us all sitting there, working on our creations, and she decided she had to try it. She dove right in and made herself a butterfly. My friend helped her tie little knots in the antennae, but the rest of it was all her.

Hannah doing some needle felting

Close-up of the felting tool and mat in action

Hannah’s butterfly

As for me, I had my sights set on a pumpkin for our nature shelf. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, if I do say so myself.

My wee pumpkin

Then Hannah and I collaborated to create a fall fairy, also for our nature shelf.

Our fall fairy, from the front and back

If you want to try needle felting yourself, there are some online tutorials showing just how easy needle felting really is. I would opt for the fancy felting tools you can find at most yarn stores, especially if you’re working with children. Because I definitely seemed to stab myself rather a lot before I also ran to the store for the mass-produced version. But beyond that, dive in and give it a try, and I bet you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can create something really cool.

Edited to say: I have now posted my own needle felting tutorial, if you want to see how quick and easy needle felting really is. Or, if you want to hear me say ‘um’ a lot. Either way, it’s sure to be a winner!