How to make ‘dry felt’ badges or pendants

This project is a fun introduction to dry felting. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you can use the needle to create a range of shapes and start to build up 3 dimensional shapes, starting from small balls of wool.

Materials

• Merino Wool
• Cookie Cutter (optional)
• Felting needle (plus 2-3 spares – this is a needle with tiny barbs along it which catch the fibres in the felt. It costs approx 25p)
• Thick, dense foam (eg upholstery foam)

Directions

1 Lay your chosen cookie cutter on the foam.

2 Fluff up a small amount of merino wook and squash it into the cookie cutter. Keep adding until the cutter is full.

3 Press the felting needle into it repeatedly. The barbs will catch the wool and mesh or ‘felt’ it together. Pay particular attention to the edges.

4 Turn your shape over regularly to avoid felting it to the foam.

5 When your shape has become firm and defined, continue to felt it in your hand, to ‘catch’ the remaining fluff. Work the edges to increase the definition of the shape.

6 Add other colours as you like and felt them in with the needle to create edging, patterns, eyes or letters.

Options:

• You can use this technique to felt onto any other fabric

• 3D: Either use a shape to start and build it up or start with a ball of wool and ‘prick’ it evenly all over, rolling it across the sponge. Then build it up by adding more wool as you go.