What is needlefelting? Some time ago I had never heard of needlefelting. I had heard of knitting with wools and then washing them and shrinking them in the dryer to make socks, pocketbooks, hats, etc. but these tiny little lifelike animals I was finding on Etsy.com amazed me. So I went on a search of the internet to find out how they were made. About the best thing I could tell you to do to see just what needlefelting is all about is to tell you about the site I stumbled upon, www.feltalive.com by Kay Petal. Kay Petal is a woman in Alaska that has a site that just simply amazed me. You have to visit her site to believe it. Needlefelting is a very old art even though alot of people don’t know about it.
Needlefelting begins with taking a base wool (a raw wool) and beginning to make an egg shaped ball by utilizing a needlefelting needle. A needlefelting needle is a specially barbed needle that has almost invisible barbs on it. You begin shaping say the head of your object by jabbing the needle into the wool. With each jab the needle takes fine particles of wool and pulls them into the object locking them in place. This is done over and over again until the ball takes the shape you want. From there you fill in the details, color, eyes, nose, etc. After you have done the body shape the two shapes are needlefelted together, and so on for arms and legs. I bought a book by Ayala Talpai for learning how to needlefelt and the needles came with the book. After trying my first object, Ayala the Fairy that I named after her, I simply was hooked on needlefelting.
There are no limits to what you came make if you have the patience to work for 3 weeks or so to finish. It is very tedious but very rewarding. You can make whatever your imagination can come up with. Kay Petal even made an old man whose teeth come out as well as alot of characatures, Sarah Palin, the Beetles, Elvis, Willie Nelson, Conan Obrien and numerous others.
I just had to try my hand at this needlefelting but where to buy what I needed I found the hardest because the craft stores didn’t carry what I needed. I wound up ordering almost all of my wool from Weir Crafts on line. They are based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A quick trip to their site www.weirdollsandcrafts.com will show you all of the numerous types and colors of wools, needles and equipment that is available should you wish to begin needlefelting.
Kay Petal ,who I mentioned above, also gives online needlefelting classes which I believe are around $60.00. Another site I found most helpful was www.birdiesroomcom. I would be remiss if I did not direct you to www.fiberfanatics.com which is Ayala Talpai’s site.
Ayala is a real pioneer in trying to bring the ancient way of needlefelting to light in our world. Feel free any time to visit my etsy site at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Ardene to view some of my works. Also check out www.needlefelters.com . But watch out, you’ll definitely get hooked.
About the Author: Ardene is a legal secretary and single mom of three grown children. She is also a grandmother to 5, soon to be 6, grandchildren. She also happens to be Alicia’s Mom. She is a very talented crafter, with a great eye for detail and amazing creativity. She also learned many of her crafting skills from her mother (Alicia’s “Mommom”). Three generations of crafting with another on the way. Amazing!