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    Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle
    Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle
    Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle
    Ebook534 pages1 hour

    Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle

    By Laura Sharp and Kevin Sharp

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Make cute and cuddly creatures from a handful of fluff and a barbed needle! “Describes and illustrates each step . . . Highly recommended.” —Library Journal

    This book about sculptural needle felting explains how you can create 3-D animals and figures using the felting needle to sculpt wool. It shows the techniques and describes how the felting needle works with wool fiber to create felt, while explaining the differences between this art form and other forms of felting.

    Learn how to hold the needle, what sort of materials to use, and why. You’ll find twenty complete projects including various birds, bugs, four-legged animals, and people—each one unique and irresistible! Wool Pets also suggests ways to display your felted creations as mobiles and ornaments, or arranged in shadow boxes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJan 4, 2011
    ISBN9781616732851
    Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle

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    Book preview

    Wool Pets - Laura Sharp

    wool pets

    Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle

    Laurie Sharp

    Photography by Kevin Sharp

    This book is dedicated to The Fab Four—Hazel, Merna, Coco, and Carmella—my sheep. They are a big part of my inspiration.

    contents

    introduction

    materials

    basic techniques

    bug magnets

    penguin & chick

    butterfly pin

    bunny

    owl

    goldfinch

    turtle

    bat

    chicken & chicks

    hummingbird

    clownfish

    chipmunk

    border collie

    cat

    frog

    sheep

    pink pig

    giraffe

    mermaid

    gnome girl

    gallery

    resources

    about the author

    acknowledgment

    Needle felting is my passion and through this book I will share it with you. Most likely, you’ve dabbled in knitting, sewing, quilting, or even clay or woodworking. The bottom line is you probably like to work with your hands. When I’m doing a public demonstration, I often hear I don’t need another complicated hobby or craft. But needle felting is different! All you need to get started is some wool, a barbed needle, and a foam pad. You will be amazed at what you can create.

    There are a few types of felting, with wet felting being the most common form. Wool fibers are separated by hand and placed in layers into the desired pattern. With the addition of hot soapy water and agitation, the result is a felted fabric.

    Another popular felting method is to knit with wool yarn and then once the project is completed, the item is thrown into the washing machine with hot soapy water to agitate and felt. Needle felting does not involve wetting the fibers. You simply mold and shape wool with a barbed needle.

    I was drawn to needle felting because I wanted more control working with wool and I wanted to make detailed figures and animals in three-dimensional forms. The felting needle was the key to my success. By using this tool, I was able to make all sorts of animals and characters with as much detail as I wanted. I especially enjoy needle felting because it doesn’t involve any measuring, weighing, counting, cutting, or other obstacles to creativity. It is a free-form and liberating craft experience!

    In this book, I will share some needle-felting techniques that I have developed over the past few years. The goal is to encourage you to try needle felting and explore the many ways you can play with it. Let your imagination soar!

    So without further ado, let’s get started!

    Most of the projects in this book require simple materials. A felting needle, wool, and a foam pad are needed for all projects. Resources for where to find these items are listed on page 128.

    materials

    The Felting Needle

    There are three basic types of industrial felt. Woven felt is wool or a blend of wool and other yarn that is woven into a cloth and then felted using steam and pressure to make the fibers interlock. Pressed felt is the oldest type of fabric known, predating weaving and knitting, and is produced simply by pressing fibers together and steaming to naturally interlock the fibers. The third type of industrial felt, needled felt, is produced by a machine that carries thousands of felting needles and moves up and down to mechanically interlock fibers. The felting needle is a long, sharp, three- or five-sided barbed instrument. Sounds dangerous, eh? This needle is the tool used for sculptural needle felting.

    Felting needles come in a variety of gauges from fine (forty gauge) to coarse (thirty-eight gauge) and they vary in the number of sides on the bottom shaft (three to five). The sides of the needle have tiny barbs poking out. Some of the barbs are close together and some are further apart. I recommend starting with a thirty-eight-gauge triangular (three-sided) needle. This size is considered standard.

    The projects in this book only require using one needle at a time. There are needle holders available that can hold two to sixteen needles at a time. The needle holders have a handle that unscrews so you can put the needles in and remove them. This tool is good if you want to make a large sculpture or large flat piece of felt.

    Store your needle in a safe place when you are not using it. I usually poke my needle deep into the side of a foam pad. Take care not to bend the needles. They are strong but brittle and they will break when bent. It goes without saying, try not to poke yourself while working. Watch your hands while you work.

    Foam

    You will need to have a piece of foam or sponge to absorb the needle when it penetrates through the wool. The best surface to use for needle felting is high-density foam that is at least 1½″ (3.8 cm) thick. Place the wool on the pad and keep needling without worrying about poking your leg or breaking your needle. Some craft stores sell upholstery foam, which can be used in a pinch, but it breaks down faster than the high-density foam.

    Clockwise from upper left: (A) wool combs, (B) metal two-needle holder, (C) wooden skewers for shaping wool, (D) foam, (E) embroidery scissors, (F) sewing needle for adding details, (G) felting needles (see close-up at left), (H) wooden five-needle holder

    Wool

    Almost any fiber can be needled—your hair, your kitty’s hair, dog hair, mohair, llama, and alpaca fiber. I find that sheep’s wool is the absolute best thing to use for needle felting. Why? Because sheep are cute. No, not really. Wool fiber has scales on it. When you poke the felting needle into the wool, the barbs on the sides of the needle make contact with the scales on the wool and cause them to tangle together. In essence, that is felt-making. The more you poke, the more compact the wool fiber becomes. This is where the magic begins . . . .

    Some types of wool fibers are better for needle felting than others. This has to do with the coarseness of the wool. Wool types are named for the sheep breed from which they came. In addition, wool fiber that has been overly processed (known

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