Wool craft, one step at a time
Needle felting, wet felting and nuno felting — explained step by step, with the tools that are worth buying and the mistakes worth avoiding.
How the barbs actually work, which of the four needle gauges to reach for, how to hold and angle the needle, how to join one piece to another, and a first project that teaches all of it.
Read the guideSculpt wool into animals, figures and decorations with barbed needles. Start with the basics, then work up to armatures, faces and fine detail.
Warm water, soap and friction turn loose fibre into solid fabric. Learn layouts, shrinkage and resists for scarves, soaps, vessels and flat felt.
Felt merino through open-weave fabric to create light, drapey textiles. Fabric choice, fibre weight and migration, explained clearly.
Complete makes with photos at every stage — animals, flowers, ornaments and home decorations, sorted by how much experience they need.
Printable templates, measurements and shaping guides you can follow exactly, or adapt once you know what the shapes are doing.
The core techniques, one skill at a time — each written as a sequence you can follow at the table with wool in your hands.
Which needles, wool and mats are actually worth buying — what the gauges mean, what to skip, and what a starter kit really needs.
Fixes for the things that go wrong: fuzzy surfaces, broken needles, wool that will not felt, and shapes that refuse to hold.
The knitting side of working with wool — leaf patterns, casting on, needle sizes and knitting faster — including the pieces that go on to be felted.
Why leaves fall when they do, what a cobweb actually is, and the seasonal makes that follow from both.
What to do with the pumpkin once it is carved — cooking from fresh, including the parts most people throw away.
Felting turns loose wool into a solid fabric without weaving or knitting. Each wool fibre is covered in tiny scales, and when the fibres are pushed against each other the scales catch and lock, so the wool tangles tighter and tighter until it holds together on its own.
There are three main ways to do it. Needle felting uses barbed needles to tangle dry wool into 3D shapes such as animals and ornaments. Wet felting uses warm water, soap and rubbing to make flat felt, scarves, bowls and hats. Nuno felting works wool through an open-weave fabric like silk gauze to make light, drapey textiles. Shrinking a knitted wool sweater on purpose is called fulling, and it works the same way. Read the full guide to what felting is.
How to recognize mid-century felt Christmas ornaments, from Japan-labeled santas and pixies to kit-made sequin pieces, tell wool felt from acrylic, date them honestly, clean and moth-proof them, fix loose sequins, and sew a new felt santa in the retro style.
12 min read Intermediate
How to needle felt a 5½ in nutcracker soldier: the cylinders it is built from, a wire or skewer core so it stands, wool weights per part, color blocking, beard, jaw and epaulettes, plus a flat sewn felt nutcracker ornament with measurements.
12 min read Intermediate
A homburg is a stiff felt hat with a single dent down the crown, no front pinch, and a brim curled up all around and bound with ribbon. Where it came from, from Bad Homburg to Eisenhower, how it compares with a fedora and a bowler, why it is traditionally fur felt, and how to look after the bound edge.
9 min read
How to wet felt a pair of seamless mittens over a resist: sizing the resist with the shrinkage formula, how much merino a pair takes, two ways to make the thumb, and fulling them to fit on your own hand. Plus knitted and felted mittens, and a small sewn mitten ornament.
11 min read Intermediate
A felt trilby is a fedora cut down: a brim of about 1½–2 in, snapped down at the front and flipped up at the back, on a shorter, tapered crown. How it differs from a fedora, the 1894 novel and 1895 play behind the name, felt against straw and fabric, wool against fur felt, fit and care.
10 min read
The first top hats were beaver felt, the classic ones were silk plush, and almost every top hat bought today is wool or fur felt. The history (including the 1797 riot story that probably never happened), the collapsible opera hat, buying a felt topper, and the measurements for making one from craft felt, plus a mini top hat for a snowman or doll.
11 min read
