Dear readers,
This week I ordered a felting kit from Amazon! Do you know what felting is? Felting is where you use refined wool from a sheep to make any creation you would like. You do this by poking it lots of times so it gets firm. There is NO substitute for a felting needle because a felting needle has little barbs ( points ) on it that only felting needles have so don’t use any thing else. There are many felting needle types for example,
Chart of Uses for Felting Needles – Various Needle Gauges
| NEEDLE | GAUGE | BLADE STYLE | FIBER TYPE | USE A | USE B | USE C |
| Coarse | 32 | triangular | Coarse fibers Micron count 39- 45 Cotswold, Karakul, Wensleydale, | Good for beginning stages when working with coarse fiber. Moves a lot of fiber quickly, leaves a large hole. | Good for needling mohair onto the heads of cloth dolls. | |
| Medium | 36 | triangular | Medium fibers
25-38 Romney, Coopworth
|
Good for beginning stages when working with medium fiber. Moves a lot of fiber quickly, leaves a smaller hole than the 32 gauge needle. | Used for detail needle when working with coarse fibers. | Used for needling medium fibers onto heavier fabrics such as denim or canvas. |
| Fine | 38 | triangular | Medium-Fine to fine fibers Micron 21-24
Corriedale, Finn, Merino |
Good for beginning stages when working with fine fiber. | Used for detail needle when working with medium fibers. | Used for needling fine fibers onto a medium weight cloth such as cotton bubble gauze. |
| Fine Star | 38 | star | Medium fine to fine fibers
Micron 21-24 Corriedale, Finn, Merino |
Used for needling fine wool onto a fine cloth base such as silk gauze or habotai. | Used as a detail needle for fine fibers. Leaves a small hole, but is still pretty aggressive at pushing a lot of fiber because it has 4 edges with notches instead of 3. | |
| Extra Fine | 40 | triangular | Fine fibers
Micron 18-20 Merino
|
Can also be used for needling fine wool onto a fine cloth base. | Used as a detail needle for fine fibers. Leaves a small hole, but doesn’t push as much fiber as the 38 star. Good for finishing the outside “skin” of the felt | |
| Ultra Fine | 42 | triangular | same as above | Used for needling onto a very fine cloth base. | Used as a final detail needle for very fine fibers. Leaves a very small hole. | Used for rooting very fine doll hair. |
To felt you need to be patient because, if you biaccidentally poke the wrong spot it is rare that you can change it back to the way you like it. I did not like the kit I got. One of the problems it had was that during one of the first couple pokes the needle that came with the kit bent. That actually happened a couple of times but I was able to bend it back it always happened again. This shows that the supplies that come from the kit are not good quality! The next prolem kind of depends on you. If you are not patient or if you are a perfectionist (like me) felting is not the best craft for you. I got very stressed when I was working on this kit because it wasn’t going the way I expected it to and also the picture on the cover shows a really amazing felted pig which made it worse for me when I looked at it. Another thing I did not like about this kit is that parts of the pig like the nose did not attach to the main part. Once I finally thought I got the nose to stick on I just had to touch it lightly for it to fall right off.? ?
Overall, I don’t think this kit was very good! And I don’t think felting is a craft for me.
Below I have attached 2 videos one about how to make the kit and another about 10 important things you need to know about felting!
Wow! I love that you included a chart and a video tutorial! I don’t think I would like this craft either. I’m not a very patient person and I get stressed when things don’t go the way I want them to either! However, maybe I SHOULD do this so I can learn to be more patient and let things go. What do you think?
Dear Jennifer,
I really enjoyed reading your post and thought it was incredible and very interesting. I really loved how you used a chart and a video in your blog. I am not the best at being patient, but I should try to be more patient by doing felting. I didn’t know there was such thing as felting but you told me and “showed me” felting was a calm activity to do. Is this the best activity to do when you are bored? I watched the videos and I thought that the second one did not give me that much information on felting but I learned how to make a baby pig by felt needling. I am going to get a felting kit, I hope it is a good activity for me to do.
Love,
Sarisia?