Or, “How I spent half an hour last night.”

With all the wool that Willow works with (okay, unintentional alliteration there), I decided I wanted to know what needle felting was like.  It seemed like a Willow-y kind of project.  I ordered a couple of wool sweaters and decided to go for it.

Discovery one:  You can’t get the needles and blocks from our local Joann.  *cue sad music*

So… I went to Amazon.com and scouted kits.  I really liked these two:

Basic Kit
Fox Kit

Discovery two:  Murphy’s Law applies to crafts too.  Of course, it’s out of stock.

The good news, however, is that I really didn’t want to make a 3-D object first time around.

So, I hopped on over to Hobby Lobby to buy something else one day and while I was there, I bought a kit that you can actually get on Amazon too.  But hey.  It worked.  Life is good.  I also bought some flat wool felt to practice on.  I thought it made sense.  Why ruin my sweaters with practice?  Note:  the kit from Amazon shown in the picture has something I WANT (and will probably order if I still want to do this later–FINGER PROTECTORS!!!)

Now to do this little project, I decided I would be “Willow-y” and get a glimpse of how someone does it and “do my own thing.”  Learn as I go.  Try not to impale my fingers with barbed needles.  YOUCH!  *Spoiler alert*  I didn’t.  Yet.

So…  let me needle you a bit…

Ingredients:

Needle Felting Kit
Felt
Roving  (These I bought for 1.50 each (pkg) from the Daiso store in SoCal.  Love those stores.
Big idea.  (Free)

Here goes…

Supplies. Roving, felt, block, needles. that’s it. Don’t even need scissors!

Those needles are SHARP

Unrolled felt. It didn’t want to stay flat, so I just rolled it the opposite way, smooshed, and voila! (I’d almost say “wa-la” to annoy Ashley, but it makes my eyes bleed)

Just tore a tiny piece off of it. Just a smidginess.

Then I started “twistin'” (and yes, I was singing this song… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSoPeZMHMf4 It was 2 a.m…. it worked!

Goodness I have big hands in this pic! Anywho… that’s how I got started. Stuck that thing in there and then stuck it again–like 40 times or so. Onto the next centimeter.

It’s coming along… I would choose something um…detailed for the background.

Splicing was easier than I expected. Just flatten the piece you have a bit, flatten a new one, roll and pull a bit as you do. Twist. Done. WOOT!

This is what it looks like on the back. If this was thinner felt (it is THICK–like 2-3 thicknesses of what you get in cheap craft felt), I think the pattern might show up well on the back.

close up with needle for effect.

That’s it.  That’s what I got done in 30 minutes of needle felting.  Stay tuned for part two!