Needle Felting Figures and other
Three Dimensional Forms ©
Sharon Costello, Black Sheep Designs
Needle (or punch) felting is a process originally developed for
making industrial felt. Large beds of steel needles are moved in and out of the
loose fiber to create large sheets of felt. The felt needle has rough, notched
edges that force the fiber down causing it to entangle with other fibers and
create felt. Modern day felt artists have recently adopted the felt needle as a
tool for creating dry felt and for use in conjunction with wet felting
techniques. By using the needle individually, or in small clusters, felt artists
can create very controlled designs and three-dimensional shapes that are
difficult to achieve using traditional wet feltmaking techniques alone.
To create fiber sculptures using the needle felting technique,
you should start with a core of non-felting wool* fiber. Many meat breeds of
sheep have fiber that doesn’t felt (or is very slow felting) and therefore
suitable for your core. There are several benefits to using a non-felting core
fiber. First, it keeps your cost down, since the quality of this core fiber is
relatively unimportant. Second, it provides a base to felt into that will stay
fairly open (a core fiber that felts fast will begin to resist your felting
needle as it hardens up). Third, if you choose to wet felt your finished
sculpture, the core fiber won’t shrink down and distort the proportions of
your piece, but the outer fiber (felting fiber) will form a hard skin.
Your core fiber should be washed and carded, but you don’t
need to fuss over it since it will not show in your finished piece. Start by
rolling the carded fiber into the basic shapes in your sculpture. If you are
making a human form, create a short fat roll for the torso, two longer thinner
rolls for the legs and one or two thinner rolls for the arms. Roll the fiber
into a ball to create a head (see illustration). It’s best to divide up your
fiber for all your body parts at one time to make sure limbs are in proportion
to each other. Your rolls should be fairly tight to cut down on your needle
felting time.
Needle felt each core shape until it holds together well and is
the consistency of a sponge. To do this, lay your roll of fiber on a large
sponge (or foam rubber) that you can poke into. Move the felting needle in and
out of the fiber in a straight motion. Turn your fiber roll frequently to be
sure it is not sticking to the sponge. Leave the ends that will be attached to
other body parts fairly loose. Most importantly, watch your fingers: felting
needles are very sharp!
Start with fairly deep jabs to make sure you are entangling the
inner fibers. Both the angle and the depth of the jab are important for shaping.
The fibers will go exactly where you put them. If you jab at an angle, the
fibers go sideways. If you jab shallow, just the surface fibers are felted,
creating a firm skin and a soft interior. When you jab deeply you can form deep
indentations like arm and leg joints, eye sockets, waistlines, etc. If jabbing
at an angle, be sure to keep the needle straight. It is very brittle and will
break easily with very little sideways pressure.
Since you are working the core fiber only you don’t need to
work in much detail at this point — just the basic body shape. Work the piece
all over once so that it holds together firmly. Then go back to begin rough
shaping. Attach the arms and legs to the torso and felt the connections so that
your figure holds together well. Add rolls of fiber to build out the chest,
buttocks, or other large body features. The smaller features, such as facial
features, should be added on in your finishing fiber. Keep in mind what pose the
finished figure will have when attaching limbs. I keep the head separate until
later because I find it easier to handle. I like to finish the head before
making the body, because it will often tell me what kind of character it wants
to be as it evolves.
Wrap the core figure with your finishing fiber. This should be a
good felting fiber, but it doesn’t have to be a fine fiber like Merino. In
fact, I prefer a slightly coarser fiber because it doesn’t show the needle
holes as much. Use washed and carded wool in the colors you need for skin, fur,
clothing, shoes, etc. Wrap fairly tightly, but not so tight that you distort the
figure. Needle felt this layer into the core fiber with fairly shallow jabs all
around. Once it is well attached you can start to work your pose and detail the
body form. This can be done by adding small rolls or balls of fiber and by
jabbing more deeply to create indentations. Add fiber rolls to create feet, knee
caps, neck, nose, chin, etc. (see illustration). Jab indentations to create
joints,
ankles, toes, eye sockets, belly buttons, etc. To
create a bent arm or leg, jab the back of the knee joint area or the front of
the elbow area. You may need to work these areas quite deeply to get your pose
to stay. To create fingers, a tail, or other pointed protrusions that are small
sized you can roll and wet felt a cord of fiber and cut it into sections and
round the finished end. Brush or flick the other end to loosen the fiber and
then needle felt it into position on the body.
As you work the surface of your figure make sure to create a
felted skin over the entire surface (except where you plan to attach the head or
other elements) with shallow jabs. If you have any thin areas where your core
fiber is showing through simply add tufts of finishing fiber with shallow jabs
of your needle. This may require a lot of poking! It's a good job for in front
of the boob tube when you're too tired to do anything else.
The head is always the most fun to make. As I already mentioned,
start by rolling a fairly tight ball out of non-felting, core fiber. Needle felt
it together, then wrap with your finishing fiber and attach it to the core with
your felting needle. Create a nose, chin, cheeks, lips, and large eyebrows by
adding various sizes of rolled finishing fiber (see illustration). Create eyes,
nostrils, etc. by pushing areas down with your felting needle.
You can add surface color for eyes, cheeks, etc. by lightly surface needling
tufts of colored fiber into selected areas (this is one application where I
prefer a fairly fine fiber like Merino) You can create ears, horns or other
elements by pre-felting them (either wet or dry) and then attaching. Attach the
head to the torso by using deep jabs up from the neck area and down from the
base of the head (make sure the head doesn’t wobble). You can add hair and eye
brows by needle felting in locks of wool, yarn or mohair.
If you want a really smooth surface to your piece, you can wet
felt after you are done with the needle felting. If you plan to do this, I
suggest leaving off any hair until you are done wet felting. If your piece has a
lot of protrusions at different angles, you may even consider wet felting the
sculpture in pieces, then needle felting it together and wet felting the joints
by hand. To wet felt your piece you can make a soap gel and apply it (warmed) to
the surface of your figure in small circular motions. You are only surface
felting the piece, so you don’t need to get it saturated. Once the surface is
smooth and tight you can rinse the whole thing out. If it’s not a delicate
piece I sometimes put it in a garment bag and spin out the excess water in the
spin cycle of my washer- otherwise, I roll it in a towel, reshape it and let it
air dry. You are likely to lose some of the crisp definition that you had prior
to wet felting. You can touch up with the felting needle after the piece is dry.
Never needle felt a wet piece.
*One advantage to needle felting is that it can be used to felt
fibers that are not responsive to wet felting.
