Learn to Needle Felt a Cute Skunk

1. Skunk introduction: - Hi , I'm Linda Foci. Self taught needle Felter Crafter and Teacher Needle felt ing started as a hobby for me back in 2013 and it became my full time job in August of 2018. So I am a full time filter, and I just I just love this craft. I started out making whimsical animals like this little skunk and graduated towards many realistic dogs and wedding cake toppers. So that's what I mostly specialize in today. But today we're gonna learn how to make this little stinker this skunk and your project will be to make one of your own. This class is great for beginners, and people have some sort of knowledge of needle felted. And if you have no knowledge of needle felt in your first time, Felter, may I suggest you watch my first video Beginner's Guide to the Fully World felt there You learn all the basics, all the tools and materials needed to work on this wonderful crab. So I hope you enjoy the class. Let's get poking 2. Skunk body: So let's start by making the body here. I have some core wool. Now I'm gonna start to roll it, tuck these ends in role roll and tuck, roll and tuck. Well, that in now we're going to start, and then he wanted felt that felt those fibres together. And I'm rotating and turning the wool at the same time. And you just poke and stab coke and staff. It doesn't have to be that dense. We're gonna be covering this with some black wool at some point. So you want about, you know, like a kind of, ah, oval shape that didn't take very long on again. I like to roll it between my hands. Here we have the body. Now that we have the body were gonna start adding some of the black wool to the body. Here I have some black roving like to sometimes and mess it up a little. I find that it's easier to felt those fibers when they're going in different directions. Just do that with my hands. There's no need. There's no need for Carter. So I'm gonna rip a little off and start needle felt ing are black onto our core and you could just grab little pieces at a time. Okay? I still using my 38 needle. My regular 30 needle. Just keep Koken, Uh 3. Skunk legs: Now, let's start making the legs here. I have four pipe cleaners cut into about three inch pieces, so I'm going to fold the silver. This will become the foot. There's no sharp Oh, why Air sticking out. I'm going to grab a little bit of my roving. It might be a little too much. I'm gonna hold the pipe cleaner tightly. Here, hold this tightly and start rapping. I'm twirling it and my thumb is holding it down so that it's wrapped tightly. Bring it down to about here. I'm gonna leave this exposed and now I'm gonna bring it back up, create kind of like a little ankle and then a little thicker on top, I could see I added, I took a little too much. So just gonna try to rip that apart and then continue twirling and then just give it a little poke to needle Felt that in. I always kind of roll it between my fingers. So here we have four legs. You could see I did not felt to the end because we're gonna insert this into the body. You have four legs. So you we have the body of the skunk now we're going to insert the legs. So what I do is I make a little snip into the front, front legs and then to in the back. Now we're going to insert those legs. You might have to cut a little bit more. Oops. Insert the leg and much. Insert the last leg. Here. We can bend them into shape a little later. Now we're gonna just add a little bit of core wolf around those joints to kind of glue, then into, uh, into place. Just needle felt thing kind of hard sometimes to see the black wool on a on a video. So we're gonna do that. All four legs have a little bit more close those gaps. Whips. I lost a leg. Maybe my cut wasn't deep enough. You know, the first cut is the deepest. So we're gonna do that All four legs now that I have all four legs connected and felt it in so they don't they don't fall out. Let's bend those little feet. So just bend them forward. The two front ones forward and the back. You want to give it kind of a hind leg? So you wanna folded? Kind of halfway up and then fold his little foot over and then make sure it stands so those are the legs. 4. Skunk head: Let's make the head. So here I have some roving and a little trick is to not it she don't have to felt as much so kind of ahead is already forming, Just not it. And then I'm gonna bring these pieces over and start belting. You want kind of a, uh, I guess a teardrop shape to the face. She wanted a little pointy for at the end here. I think I have to much wool, so I'll just ripped that off. Can I continue? Felt those fibres together, nodding it. You save a lot of time again. I'm a big fan of rolling it between my fingers. So to create more of a pointy shape here, all dressed needle felt it a little bit more in the front. Bring those fibers together, condensed them now, still poke myself, and then I kind of compare it to your body. Make sure it's not too small, too big. You can always add a little bit more wool. Um, I think that's a probably a pretty good size. All right, so we have our head. Let's do the years take a little bit of roving. I kind of like to mess it up a little. Felt ing it in place and then bring those edge is over. Plucking them in a little and then lifted off your pad. Felt a little bit more. That looks like this year might be a little too big, but we'll see. I left the end. Unfelt it so that we can connect it to the head. We can always clean up those edges a little later, so I'm gonna make two of those. So let's connect the ears to the head. They have very small ears. You can actually can't even really see them too much. So we're gonna attach it right to the side, given a little poke, touch it to the other side, and then you can just trim the excess. Well, uh, to make sure There they're in there. Make a little nose. If you have a tiny bit of brown, I felt you can use brown. You can use gray. We're just gonna needle felt that into the tip there. Just like that. Now, if you don't have a brown or grey, why not make your own? Grab some of your black wool and your white wolf and just kind of you're carting it with your hands and your blending those fibres and you now have agree. Well, let's actually use that. Let's put that on the chip. Just on the very tip. The fancy. It's tip of his nose. Now we're gonna add the eyes, so I have these little beads that have stems on them. But you can use regular bees. You just have to make sure you poke your hole deep enough. So I'm just gonna cut a little hole in here and a little hole in here. Normally, I would just and then I use a little glue just a little bit on the end there. God, Blackwell is tough to see at that. I in there. Let's see where we made that other hole. Okay, A little bit of glue on insert that I we have ahead. It's time to connect the head to the body. So are we. Take another piece of pipe cleaner, baby. Three inches. I would fold it in half. Now I'm gonna cut a hole towards the back of the head here and then a whole in the front here, see if I can find that Insert the pipe cleaner in the head. Let's just make sure that hole is big enough and insert that in there. They were gonna use some core bull to connect that you can use your black roving as well. But I don't like toe waste the good bull. When it's most of it's gonna be covered. Let's take some of the core wool. Let's just give it a little stab to connect it and start wrapping it. It's almost like he has a little scar Connecting those two pieces together on a needle felt it in place. Just like that. Connecting the two pieces together with the core will keep Okay, like about the pipe cleaners that you can position the head, you can angle it. You could bring it up. Now we'll cover that with some of the roving. Okay, you could wrap it, just place on top. He's starting to get a neck. I don't know why I'm calling him a He I should look into into a he and a she skunk if they if they look the same lots of times. And mother nature, the Mehlis is prettier has more markings and more color. All right, so the neck is connected a little bit more here and we'll cover up that white. You can clean all this up a little later, but we have our head connected, starting to look like something. 5. Skunk tail: Let's make the tail there. Have Ah, pipe cleaner. Could be black, White could be purple or orange. So much thus the whole side, the whole pipe cleaner. And I'm gonna fold this in half, create a loop up here. I'm gonna twist this guy around here on. That's going to become the tail. Now we're going to wrap that with some Korbel and you're just gonna twisted around. Give it a pope. I would use the same kind of shape for a squirrels tail poke. Wrap it around your pipe cleaner, but more will here, but we start with less. Well, you can always add more. You have the beginning of a to let's insert the tail into the skunk. So, yes, we're gonna cut a hole in his. But so let's put that whole in there. Insert a pipe cleaner and then we can curl that tail up. It's starting to look like a skunk. Now we're gonna cover that with some core will grab my core will on start poking okay and covering. Keep stabbing. I would like to take little pieces at a time. We want to connect those together so you can bend the tail up a little. Let's get this self. Did a little bit more. Okay, Way had that tail pretty much in there. Let's hope you still stands. Let's see. Yep, he's still standing. We've been. Bend that up a little later. He's getting there. Next we're gonna add his stripes. 6. Skunk stripes: start adding his stripes. It's gonna take some of the core wool just a little bit at a time. It kind of starts a little bit above above the ear. We're gonna needle felt that in there and then down down the sides, little at a time. Look, he's really starting to look like a skunk now for a little at a time. Needle felt that in. Look at that. All right, let's do that to the other side. You don't start from the back a little bit of time. Just continue to the front. You might wanna search online for skunks. There are all different types. Um, so you can look at their stripes and see how they go along the body and we'll bring it up to the front again. You can bring a little down the head, the little piece right down into the front there. I think that gives him some character. We've added Hiss stripes. So now we're gonna need to add a little black here. Still, let's grab some of our roving and start needle felted. Now they're skunks. Air a bit hairy and fluffy. They're here kind of sticks out, so you don't have to be that knee. You don't have to make it that smooth. So let's just needle felt that in there on. Continue to the back a little bit more. You could see I'm not being that neat with it. I kind of wanted toe sticker. Be a little rough. You could see starting to get a skunk here. Now, you could leave it just like this, but I'd like to embellish it a little bit more. I'll show you that in the next video fear. I've embellished the skunk a little bit more. You could see the difference here. This for that I put in see how kind of hairy it is. It sticks out compared to just the core wool. So I'm gonna show you how I did that. So you've got some white roving here and I'm gonna cut them into I don't know. One in strips, 1.5 inch strips. Doesn't have to be perfect. I've got a whole bunch. It's just easier for me to do it all at once. So I'm gonna grab a little at a time, and it could be messy. That's the fun part and that we're gonna place that there. And then needle felt it right in the center. Take a little bit more. Maybe I felt this one this way vertically. And I continue down during it on all different directions. It doesn't have to be vertical or horizontal over time. I mean, one way all the time. It could be it could be both way. - Okay , we have that all. Felt it. Now. My favorite part. Give him a haircut. Just start snipping. Not too close, But you want to clean up those edges. Just snip, snip, snip. Clean him up. That's how you would connect long hair to a felted piece. We have our skunk. Now. You can kind of position him if you wanted to. Kind of Benjamin a little. Maybe the tail goes up a little bit more. Maybe his head gets tilted to the side. 7. Skunk conclusion : Hi. So the class is over, and I hope you have fun. I hope to see your little skunks in the project gallery. I encourage you to post it there. I will give you feedback, I think any advice you like Also, if you have any ideas for some other classes are animals. You want to learn? Drop me a line and I'll create a lesson for that too. So I hope you had fun. I did.