Needle Felting Teddy Bears for Beginners

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Step Five: Take smaller amounts of wool and needle felt one small amount into a ball for the muzzle. Take another two equally sized small amounts and fold the wool over into a rough ear-shape, and needle felt some ears. Leave a loose part on the underside of the muzzle and on the under-side of the ears for attachment purposes. To make an evenly shaped ball, keep your eye on one profile edge, felt it into an even curve, turn the shape and then make that edge match. Keep turning and looking at one profile edge. A neat ball will soon form. Take a small amount of coloured wool fibre and rub it in your fingers until you have a little round pad. Place this onto the ball and very gently felt it, using the tip of your needle, until it is firmly attached.

Needle-felting is an easy and fun technique, requiring little in the way of expensive materials or equipment. Its accessibility means it's becoming more and more popular, and award-winning authors Judy Balchin and Roz Dace show how to make 20 wonderful little teddy bears using this tactile technique. Step Three: Create arms using “logs” of roving. A three to four inch long, narrow strip of roving doubled will usually make one arm comfortably. If you double the roving, the fold is where the paw will be, and the loose ends will help facilitate the arm-to-body attachment. Step Nine: Use your darker colors to add detailing to ears, muzzle, eyes, and paws. Layering dark and light in the eyes can give you a more realistic look as well. Once you have the fine detail done, needle felt colored fiber on as “clothes” or needle felt a flat cloak, shawl, or even a hat. To shape an indent in needle felting, you poke that location multiple times with your felting needle. The more you poke the harder the felt becomes in that spot and the smaller/tighter that spot becomes. In a round shape, this repeated poking can be used to create a 3D muzzle, and cute little eyes on any bear.

Step Six:– Assembling: Needle felt the ears, and muzzle onto the head. Also shape for the eyes and felt the head down a bit more. Then needle felt the arms and legs to the bear’s torso. Try and position the legs and arms so that they are equal. This is also the time to decide if you want your bear to have one arm raised, lowered, and needle felt the limbs into the pose you want. This bear will be very firm and dense, not like a plush toy. It's pretty durable, but I have never put one through a wash. I do believe they would survive a washing machine, but I would not put one in the drier. Hand washing would probably be best, and then just blot the bear dry and re-shape it, if necessary. Cover any bald spots with smaller pads of coloured wool until you have a neat, even coverage all over. Slide your finger down to almost the tip of your needle and tap the surface all over to push in any loose strands. Each bear measures around 10-12cm (4-5in) tall and can be made in a matter of hours from a bundle of wool fibres, a felting needle and some carefully chosen embellishments. Each bear has its own special character, and they make ideal gifts and keepsakes for friends and loved ones. There's a pretty ballet bear, a cool Christmas bear, as well as a vintage bear, rainbow bear and cute baby bears. Wool – Polworth or Coridale roving is preferable. However, as long as the wool will felt you can use whatever you have on hand. I used a hand-carded lot of Romney wool, though commercially prepared roving gives a more uniform result.

Take another small piece of wool and roll into a log. Needle it at one end, creating the first arm shape. Start felting by pushing the needle into it until it comes together and firm up. Take small sharp scissors and cut this flat log into two forming legs that are approx. 0.5inlong. Felt each leg until it's shaped.

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Needle and Thread to secure head and limbs if you intend to give the bear as a gift, or if it will be around children. How To Needle Felt a 3D Teddy Bear: Step Four: Create legs using roughly one third more roving than you used for the arms. With the legs, you will want to have a bit of an upturned foot, so do not double the roving but work in a single straight log. One loose end you will shape for the foot, and the other you will leave loose to facilitate attachment. Carefully slide the wool off and hold it at the top and bottom so that it doesn’t unravel. It should look like a big marshmallow. Place it on a sponge and begin to poke it all over with the needle. Keep turning the wool. To turn your decorative balls into hanging baubles, tie a loop in some jolly thread. Place this on top of the ball and lie some matching wool strands over the thread. Felt the loop firmly in place. Split the wool into three lengths of around 7g each. Roll one of these tightly around the top of your finger, keeping the fibres straight. Blend the ends in by smoothing them with your other hand.

Twist the wool strand as you felt gently along it and ‘draw’ a neat line. You might like to curve the line as you go so that it looks like the stem of a leaf. Poke the ends of the strand into the ball. Each project is accompanied by clear, step-by-step instructions and beautiful photographs, and there are handy hints and tips throughout the book to help make the crafting process even easier. Detailed guidance is provided at the start of the book on the materials and equipment you need; how to sculpt a basic bear; make your bears' paws, feet and faces; and how to really bring your bear to life by carefully positioning the nose, eyes and ears. The techniques are easy to learn and soon you will be designing and making bears of your own to keep or give.

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From the authors of Needle Felting for Beginners, awarded BEST CRAFT BOOK in The Craft Business Awards 2021. Katie and Rachel will be teaching a series of needle felting and macrame classes at the beautiful Ashridge House this month. Have a go at making the baubles featured here or try crafting baby penguins, macrame snowflakes or Christmas puddings! Work up from the top of the legs with your felting needle all the time shaping and forming the torso. Repeatedly pushing the needle in at a point below the belly will cause the body to bend upwards and make your teddy into a sitting bear. Make another long strand and anchor it a little way down from the top of the first line by poking it very firmly in place. Felt it at a 45º angle for around 1cm. Then firmly anchor it again. You can add a nose if you like, but it's difficult to get a separate ball of wool to attach permanently to the end of the nose. This one is for a baby gift, and I didn't want the the baby to be able to pull the nose off.

Poke the needle in where you have anchored it and, leaving the needle there, pivot the strand down towards the stem, making a triangular leaf shape. Remove the needle and felt along this line. Now that all the bear's parts are in place, you can start working the wool down to make the features more defined and sized proportionally. Work little by little, don't focus too much on one area, move around keeping the arms, legs, ears the same size. Designs are easily made using thin lines and small dots. To create this leaf design, start by rubbing a few long fibres to make a strand. Felt one end into the bauble until it is secure. Keep needling the head to firm it up and whilst doing so, try to form the ears from the ball by going round with the needle to form the shape. If you can’t form ears this wayadd more felt and needle them on. Needle-felting is the art of turning wool fibres into 3D shapes using a specialist needle. It is very easy to master and there are only a few things that you need to know to get started.

Pull/cut away the arm at about 0.5in long. Needle the cut/frayed end firmly into the body. The fur/thread will stay in position without anything more than the action of the needle. Repeat. Needle felting is a simple way to sculpt wool into any 3D object you can imagine. Basic needle felting techniques needed to make a bear include, knowing how to make a ball, a log shape, and how to use your needle to do basic shaping. Of course, also knowing how to avoid breaking your needle, or poking yourself, is also beneficial. Search Press supports the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), the Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (DAAC), and the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA).