Felted Wool Animals

As I have mentioned before in my other posts, I enjoy making various crafts. With the help of the book, Artful Christmas: 30 Elegant Craft Projects, I was able to make another fun art project. Although this book focused mostly on Christmas projects, it also contained several ideas for other types of cool, creative crafts. For this post, I chose to make felted wool animals.

The materials needed were many different colors of wool, felting needles, a foam pad, and optional finger gloves to protect your fingers from the needles. I bought a felting kit online that included most of these materials.

First, I decided to make a bunny. Using the felting needle, I took some white wool and poked it into a ball. This would be the inner layer. After poking that into shape, I wrapped some pink wool around the ball and began poking it. “Lay it on the foam pad and jab at it repeatedly with the needle-felting tool. The fibers will tangle together and form a firm shape” (Wasinger 54). The most important thing is to make sure the wool is hard enough and doesn’t fall apart.

To make the ears, I was supposed to take a little bit of pink wool, fold it in half, and poke it until the shape of the ear formed. By poking in the middle of the ear more, it became more indented and better resembled a bunny ear. Use the leftover fibers that are hanging off the ear to attach it to the head. Needle all around the base of the ear so that it’s securely attached and is forced to stand up by itself (Wasinger 55). Then use a small amount of black wool as the nose and the mouth.

Once this step was completed, all I had to do was place the eyes. This was a bit harder because it wouldn’t secure into place very well. I had to use a special tool to help me make a bigger hole in the spot of the eyes for them to slide in well enough and stay.

After making the bunny, I proceeded to make a seal. Following the same basic steps as before, I used the felting needle to poke some white wool into a ball. I made the tail and fins by taking a little bit of wool and poking it into the right shapes. This process took some time and patience because it was harder than it looked. I attached these parts the same way I attached the bunny’s ears.

The third animal I made was a penguin. I followed most of the same steps and created the shape of the body first. Using some white and orange wool, I made the penguin’s belly, beak, and feet. After attaching these onto the body, I slid the eyes into place and poked around to polish up the shape.

Out of the three felted wool animals I created, my favorite one was the penguin because it was cute and colorful. All in all, this project was fun and the final product was nice, but I need to keep practicing. I also need to have more patience because felting is pretty time-consuming, but I hope to make more little animals in the future!

Which animal do you like the most? Would you be willing to give felting a try?

Wasinger, Susan. Artful Christmas: 30 Elegant Craft Projects. Lark, 2014