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.
Sitting up on its big hind feet, a squirrel is mostly tail: nearly as long as the rest of it, curving up the back. How to wire and furnish that tail, shape the sitting pose, fit the paws round an acorn, and colour a grey or a red squirrel.
9 min read Intermediate
Most of a dragon's outline is neck, tail and wing rather than body, so the pose and the wire decide the build. Which pose balances, wire gauges, wool weights for three sizes, wired wings, scales, spines, horns, eyes and colours.
9 min read Advanced
Mohair felts slowly and loosely on its own, which is exactly why its locks keep their curl on a felted surface. Kid, yearling and adult grades, blending with merino, attaching locks for doll hair and Santa beards, mohair yarn in wet and nuno felting, and washing locks safely.
8 min read Intermediate
A wool felt needle book with pinked pages, sized for three uses, sewn in an evening or made with a wet felted cover. Plus a felted wool pincushion: how much wool for each size, how firm to felt it, and tomato, strawberry, jar-lid and wrist versions.
8 min read Beginner
Four thin wings felted flat on a foam pad, a wire along each front edge so they hold a pose, and a body with clubbed antennae. Sizes, wool weights, monarch markings and five other species, plus brooch, clip and plant pick mounts.
13 min read Intermediate
A smooth pebble wrapped in a few grams of wool and rubbed in soapy water until the felt shrinks tight onto it. How much wool each size of stone takes, the stocking trick, cut-open geode stones, and what felted stones are good for.
9 min read Beginner
