Wool Felting - Blog Posts
Baby's first felting
I really enjoyed it, apart from the constant accidental stabbing of my being
Who’s that Pokémon?
Iiiiiiiit’s Clefairy!
Jk jk
Iiiiiiiit’s Mini Skip!
Finished him on the 19th anniversary :3
So happy birthday Club Penguin! Have a ghost!
Did this for an art contest, and I'm actually kinda proud with how it turned out! I also learned along the way that fabric and felt mesh a lot easier than I had originally thought, as I was able to attach the dress with my needle without much of a problem.
But anyway, they fit nicely with my collection! Even if I don't win I still gained something out of it :3
Part 4, and last part of the felted penguin tutorial!
Now that you have your beak, it’s time for the feet. From all the other penguins I’ve felted, I was running out of orange felt— you can use more than in the picture if you’d like to! Just make sure to cut/tear them as even as you can.
Again, for the feet I usually just place the felt on and go from there, but you can always make the shape beforehand.
Face the feet at an angle under the penguin, more towards the front than the back. Also try to get them as flat as you can, these will be the only thing holding your penguin up! Please do not give your penguin a concussion by dooming it to fall over and over again, the poor little guys.
Next up we’re working on the eyes. If your penguin has a mask, sunglasses, etc, this step is completely optional. Here I could have switched to my smaller needle, but I stuck with medium.
You can shape the penguin’s expression a bit more here with how you shape the eyes— for example, since AA is more attentive, I gave her wider, slightly sloped eyes.
Applying them is about the same as applying the white felt on the belly. Place a small amount of white felt above one side of the beak, shape it as you tighten it, and do the same for the other side. Make sure not to leave any space between the white of the eyes and the beak, and of course, get it as flat as you can.
Lastly, add the black part of the eyes! Use a VERY small amount of black felt, as it pops out a lot.
If you have felting scissors, you can also snip away extra bits of felt around the sides to make it look cleaner. AA definitely needs a bit more of a trim XD
I’ll get to her clothes sometime, but for now, here’s your penguin tutorial!
Part 3 of a felted penguin tutorial
Once you have the flippers in your selected mold, use the needle to stuff it in there (note: I used a hard surface to take the picture, but do NOT do it on a hard surface. It won’t tighten it, at least not well, and it might break your needle. Use foam underneath, or any other soft surface you don’t mind getting holes in).
Switch back and forth from either side to make sure both sides of the flipper is tightening the same.
Make sure to keep a bit of loose felt at the ends of the flippers for attaching them in the next step.
Next merge the flippers with the sides of the penguin. This step is pretty simple! This is where I usually place the flippers, but you can place them anywhere you want really.
Here’s what we have now :3
Faceless, but looking pretty neat!
Let’s fix its facelessness. Take a bit of orange felt (I didn’t take a picture of how much I cut… whoopsies!) and place it just above the neckline. This is where you can choose your penguin’s expression. I’m giving her just a regular smile, but it can be anything you want!
I know it looks weird, but it’ll look better soon I promise.
Next take a bit more of your orange felt and wad it up in the middle of the expression you just made. I tighten it there, but if you find it easier you can create its oval shape before putting it on.
Shorten it as much as you can, and try to keep it between the line of orange felt you placed there before!
We’re almost done, should be able to finish in the next part!
Part 2 of a felted penguin tutorial
When you are done making the base shape, it should look a little like this. Make sure to focus on the upper half to make the neck more prominent.
Next up is the white belly. Keep in mind this step can be skipped if you’re sure that clothing will cover it up, but I do it anyway in case the clothing fits differently than I originally thought. This is also where I switched from my bigger needle to my medium needle.
Either way, make sure to cut/tear a small bit of white felt to set aside for the eyes.
Place a bit of the white felt on the front of the penguin (you can add more if some of the base still shows underneath), shaping it as you tighten it. Be sure to keep it below the neck to leave room for the beak, and to get it as flat as possible.
If you accidentally tighten it in the wrong spot, you should be able to nudge back into place with your needle, or pull that spot out with your fingernails to start over.
Now’s where we work on the flippers. You can always just add on the felt as is to the sides of the penguin, like I did with Rookie, but I’ll show how I make the flatter flippers anyway.
You can use anything as a mold, feel free to get creative with it! For my flippers, I use this spot of a paw print mold.
Another part coming… bear with me here!
Took a bit, sorry for the wait! Unfortunately I was not able to get to the clothes, but here is Part 1 the tutorial for the base penguin (doing this on mobile won’t let me post more than 10 images :P ):
First off, plan your colors ahead of time. That way you won’t run into a wall later if you don’t have a color for a certain part! I didn’t do it this time, but it helps to draw the figurine and map out the colors.
I’m making Aunt Arctic this time around :3
When I make these, I use a whole baggie of felt as to not make them too small. I also use different sized needles, but they’re only preferable, not required; one good needle will be fine.
Tear or cut away a couple small pieces of felt (make them as even as you can), and set them aside. They’ll be for the flippers.
Start tightening the felt to get a simple shape down (to make these I do not break the body into multiple shapes). As you do this, focus your jabs where you’d like the neck to be. I’m using Rookie here as reference. Ty for your service goofball
Keep doing this until the felt doesn’t give much when you squeeze it between your fingers.
Hello!!!!
The wool Gary + Rookie are really cute! How did you make them? I.e – Were patterns used? Was it very difficult?
^ Words by a fool who craves to make a wool Cadence but knows nothing
Thank you!
Hi!! Tysm for the ask, I wasn’t expecting this lol (a lot of writing, brace yourself)
To answer your questions— nope, it wasn’t very difficult (cp designs have a lot of basic/easy shapes)! Both of them only took around 5-6 hours to complete. Though needle felting is a passion of mine, so I didn’t feel the need to take a break.
As for patterns, I only really used one to get the flat shape that I got for Gary’s flippers (any triangle cut-out will do really for a mold, if you want to do that as opposed to Rookie’s flippers which were just done with some added felt)
If you want, I can post a step-by-step of another penguin to show you the process, since explaining it would probably be a lot harder than physically showing it. I’ve been experimenting with other designs as well, though I cannot tell which I like more. Here’s an example of a felt I did of a friend’s OC, and I’d be happy to show how I did this too
Really, the biggest things I would suggest are to plan ahead, be patient, and focus on layering so clothing doesn’t look awkward (for example, for Gary’s lab coat I made sure to add on his flippers first so the sleeves could wrap around them, then I made the undershirt, then the tie atop of that, and finally added the white felt on top of everything).
Either way though, I wish you luck on your DJ K-Dance! And ty again for the ask :3
Wool Gary and Wool Rookie (Wary and Wookie??) that I made to stare me down as I replay the PSA missions for the billionth time instead of sleeping, judging my life choices
Gotta love using school assignments as an excuse to draw object show fanart
This one was for art class
And this one's for extra credit in English literature
The council will decide your fate
"And bumblebee!" Ahh etho