NEEDLE FELTING TUTORIAL - FELT A HEAD

This needle felting tutorial will take you step by step on how to make this needle felted head using alpaca fleece. You can use other types of wool for your felted characters if you don't have alpaca wool. I highly recommend you give it a try some time on a 3D sculpture, though. Your needle felting project will be softer and less hairy.

It will take more jabs of the needle. Alpaca is a little slippery and the rolling technique is a little harder to perform. Combining layering and rolling works well when using alpaca fiber.

If you follow this tutorial you should be able to produce a nice head. Once you have made one, then you can try altering the features to make different characters. 3D sculptures are fun to make and there are so many ways to add character that you never have to worry about running out of ideas.

You will need felting needles, carded fleece, and a foam pad to work on.

Scissors will help you trim fleece if you need to and you can use it to trim any hairyness from the head.

This is a beginning head for a felted character. It is simple. It looks great but does not contain too much detail to worry about.

Don't worry if yours doesn't look exaclty like this one. Everyone will have a different style. The idea is to show you how to put the pieces together so that you can make your own creations.

In these needle felting instructions, you will have to make a tube. You can use your needle or a toothpick.

To use the needle, carefully wrap the carded fleece around the needle.

Roll all the fibers around. Do not leave any open edges. Carefully slide the tube off the needle.

No fingers have ever been injured using this procedure but if you are unsure how safe it would be for you, then use the toothpick.

After the tube has been removed from the needle, jab it a couple of times with the needle to get it to hold together.

The rest of the instructions can be found in the tutorial.

The tutorial is in PDF form. You must have an acrobat reader to use this file.

Have fun!

Get your free tutorial to make the pictured head.

After you have made the head, get the felt doll body instructions.

Keep checking back. Instructions are being developed on how to needle felt an alpaca.

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