Any needlefelters here?
I got into it at the beginning of this year and I have to say this is the most fun hobby I've ever picked up. I've always loved plushies but have been greatly intimidated by sewing. But I've also always been good at modeling with clay and being able to visually break down objects into shapes. Needlefelting is like being able to make plushies using the skillset of modeling clay vs the skillset of sewing. At least that's how my brain sees it.
So far I've made two plushies, one Black Frost from SMT and one Gammamon from Digimon Ghost Game. If it's possible to post pictures here I would be happy to show them, but I don't know how, if anyone would like to enlighten me I'd appreciate it. Otherwise I could link to a tweet with pics but I'm not sure if there's rules against self-promotion as my Twitter is linked to an online shop.
Anyone else here needlefelting? Share what you're working on! Or any tips you have!
I'm not a needlefelter, but I am a fan of the art! Very excited to hear other people share their stories and describe what they've made.
Off-topic, but your username is very cute and appropriate for this discussion.
I'm sorry I missed this post earlier. I do needle felting! I have not done it in a while, though.
If you want to post pictures, I suggest getting an account at https://imgur.com/ and uploading them there, then you can link them here in a comment or post. For example, this is my imgur link to an needle felted hellbender salamander that I made for my sister.
Awww I love your salamander! Especially the little feets! awesome gift for your sister.
I prefer not to make new accounts at places so, I'll just post from twitter. you can see my felts here! https://twitter.com/squishfelt/status/1669568390866915329?t=GAyoKWyp83MggB4eqJCvRw&s=19
Whoa, those look great! And really solidly constructed! (I tend to lose interest after a while and leave mine in a kind of loose state...)
I've seen through working with various materials that how solid the end result is, is really based on the materials used. When I started out, I bought a $25 felting kit, came with some needles and some little bags of wool. Same exact technique, but my felts came out with a ton of flyaway fibers and felt really loose. I googled around and found that for smoother felts it was better to use wool batting vs roving. Ordered some from a site I liked and it was like night and day. Everything felted down so smoothly and way fewer fibers flying everywhere. Still using the same cheap needles from the kit, too.
Oh, that's very interesting. Do you know what type of wool you got?
I'll DM it to you. I don't want to link to products here!
Real question- how do you needlefelt without stabbing yourself? I got a cute craft kit from a friend, but I kept repeatedly stabbing myself with the barbed needle before giving up.
I also stab myself. Not often at all, but it happens. I keep a tin of Unicorn Bandages on my craft table, lol.
Don't look at anything else while you do it, put on a podcast or music, don't do videos or anything short that you have to look at and change. Don't put your fingers underneath what you're working on. If you find yourself doing that, stop and reposition your work. Use a felting mat.
I find it helps to work on larger projects (you can hold them from further away from where you're stabbing) and to work on some kind surface that will help hold the object in place for you. I use a foam pad that I covered in felt. As I stab the object I'm making, the gets kind of stuck to the felt covering the foam, and that helps hold it in place until I pull it off and reposition it.
I do still stab myself when I'm working on small, detailed parts, though.
I do not needlefelt, but I've considered it, and this is really making me want to try. Any pointers on a good starting point, maybe a not-too-crazy kit for the chronic collector of hobbies?
I started with a $25 kit from Amazon containing an assortment of needles with one of those wooden needle grips, a multi needle tool, and other things that I don't really use often but nice to have. It also included little bags of wool and a little slice of foam to use as a felting mat. My advice would be to get that kit, but just set the wool and mat aside. The wool only made low quality stuff (I describe this in an earlier reply above), and the mat lost its shape and firmness pretty quickly. I went to a site called Living Felt (not sponsored) and specifically bought their wool batting, and one of their gray felting mats. This combo is what I use to create the felts you see in the tweet I posted above.
I'm not sure if there's an all in one kit that contains everything you need for a good start. The wool included in the cheap kits really does set you up for failure. I feel like a bunch of people get turned off from needlefelting because they make these scraggly creatures that take way longer to get smooth than they have patience, and that's because of bad starting materials. To sum up my advice, I'd say... cheap out on needles, don't cheap out on wool and felting mat. And those two worlds won't be in one kit. Maybe decide what you want to make so you already know exactly which colors to buy, to keep the price down. And remember to use core wool (much cheaper!) to build up your plushies' bodies and only use color for the final top layer!
Thank you! I love your description of it as the skillset of clay vs. sewing - I used to make custom stuffed animals, but I always did it more by fitting pieces than the usual "cut to a pattern, invert" approach, which I eventually learned but kind of hated. Needlefelting looks like the actual skillset I was trying to use.
I learned how to do needlefelting in the past year! It's a lot of fun. I liked dry felting rather than wet. I'm off work for a couple of months, I hope to do some more over the summer!