I hadn’t heard of needle felting before I saw a ton of adorable creations popping up on my Facebook feed. At first it never crossed my mind that I might be able to create similar items. I have zero skills at sewing, and it looked like the little pieces might be sewn together. Hard pass for me. 😀

As the weeks went by and I saw more and more, I did a little more research and finally broke down and bought two kits on Amazon. They weren’t super expensive, so I figured if I didn’t like it or my projects turned out horribly I wouldn’t be out that much. The kits arrived, a cute little teddy bear and an adorable hedgehog. Still, I didn’t open them up until a few weeks later. My friend, Candace, who was over to help me out with my wedding centerpieces, spotted one of my kits and commented that she and her daughter had done some of them. She said it was a pretty easy process of poking wool. It definitely boosted my confidence, but my schedule was a bit hectic, so it took several weeks more until I finally opened up the little teddy bear kit. I thought that it would be the best to start with since the bear was made up of just one color.

I sat down at the table with my supplies spread around me, folded the wool over itself as the instructions said to do and then started poking it with the felting needle. This needle has little notches on it that when pushed through the wool work to pull and bond it together. It took a while, but eventually the circular shape of the bear’s head began to materialize. After crafting the head and the body, I discovered just how easy it was to assemble them by once again poking them together. When I finished making the rest of his body parts and assembling them together, I thought he needed something more. I started out trying to make him his own mini teddy bear, but struggled with the smaller pieces. Eventually, the tiny teddy turned into a tiny sheep. 😄🐑😉

My little guy looked quite a bit different than the model bear on the kit package, but I still like him a lot. After my success with him, I purchased a kit with four gnomes. I made one of them, but struggled a lot with the little flowers and the wings on his hat. I decided not to be too hard on myself since I am just starting out. I’m sure with time and practice, I will improve a little bit with every project.

I am excited to try other projects! I still have three little gnomes to craft and a surprising amount of wool left over from the two other kits I purchased. I believe I’ll be searching for online tutorials of other simple needle felting projects. If there is something you’ve been thinking of trying, I encourage you to give it a go! At worst, you discover what you do not want to do and at best, you find a fun new hobby or pasttime!

Enjoy your week!

💕 Beth