Learn to Needle Felt a Dog

1. Introduction to Dog Lesson: Hi, I'm Linda. Facts your facts designs Needle Felter and Crafter. Today I'm going to teach you, have a needle, felt this cute little dog. Follow my easy step by step instructions and you'll walk away with your own dog. Today we're gonna use Korbel, and that's what I use to make my dogs. And then I cover them with the carded wool or a roving. But today we're just gonna leave it in the core bull. Don't have any knowledge of needle felted. Please be sure to check out my first video introduction to Needle Felton, where you learn the basics of wool and needles and pads and and all those all those things , So let's get poking. 2. Let's Get A Head: the first thing we're gonna do is wrap a pipe cleaner. So I have half of a pipe cleaner here and I'm gonna full descend over here. So we have a smooth point, not a sharp one. And then we're gonna wrap. So I'm gonna grab a little bit of wool gonna spread it out. I want thin. I'm gonna start about halfway down and you want to wrap rather tightly only till you get to the top and then bring a little bit of wool over the tip there with your finger kind of cover the tip and then bring it back down, given a couple of twirls and you see it sticks to itself, But you can give it a couple of pokes is well, and then I rub it between my hands. This is gonna become this Now, Now we're gonna make the top of the head. So I grabbed a little bit of wool here, so it's not much. I kind of fold that in a little bit. I'm gonna start wrapping it around my pointer finger tightly, rather tightly, and then take that off. I'm gonna needle felt it towards the ends here. Not too much. Just enough to keep it together. You see how it's thicker? Appear a little flat here and thinner here. We're gonna wrap that around the pipe cleaner. Do you take your pipe cleaner? About maybe a little less than half an inch from the tip. You start to needle felt that one ended, and then you bring this end around to meet it. Almost like a pig in the blanket. Okay, be the that. A few pokes I see should look like that from the front. We're gonna give this couple of pokes kind of make it a little bit more narrow. Here, you see the difference. Three. Not in this now and then. Bring that in. Just light. Like Cokes. Next. We're gonna make the snout portion gonna wrap it around here, take a little piece of wool, give a few pokes. We want to make a rectangle awful that in in full these ends in a little full that end. Don't needle felt too much, especially on the ends. Here, take it off your pad. Turn around. Give it a few pokes. I could see how much I needle felt that it's not very flat. Now we're gonna lay this down, We're gonna place this right on top. You see, it should be just a little bit longer in the head, and we're gonna needle felt that in place. So we're gonna needle felt it right on toothy pipe cleaner. So if we got that centered now, you see, I didn't really get that centered. So I'm gonna shift that over and just start again. That's better. So I'm gonna fold this down now. You don't want to fold it straight down. You want to fold it towards the back of the head. You want to create this angle here, so you see the difference. I don't want to fold it straight down. I want to fold it back. I'm gonna fold it back and start to needle. Felt that to the head. In short, short strokes. Now you can do to start needle felt thing that snapped down a little bit more once it's connected to the head should look like that. And then I'm gonna needle felt this closed. See? It's starting to take the shape of a dog. Now we're gonna fill in this little gap here, and we'll do that by taking a little piece of wool. Well, we say start with less. You can always add more. You see how little on taking? I find that a lot of my students take too much, will place that right on top between the tip of the nose and the forehead and lightly needle felt that to kind of close in those gaps. A light touch. You might need a little bit more. We can add a little bit more again. Just a little. Maybe at this point I'll do it this way. Just blending those two pieces together. You don't want to add too much will at this point, we're gonna add a little will to cover up that pipe cleaner in a little piece of will to feel in that that hole that was left you see how it create that angle for bringing that piece back. Now, at this point, you can start shaping it a little bit, kind of get all those little loose fibres in there, maybe some shaping along here, turn it over, shaping in the back, shaping down here Now I would probably needle felt this a little bit, because if you see from the top here I want this a little bit more narrow so you can start by kind of squeezing your wool with your fingers Syracuse narrow and then wide. Or you could needle felt that a little bit. Get that a little bit more narrow. You see, at this point, let's add the nose. So I'm grabbing a little bit of black wool tiny bit, curl it up in my fingers a little bit, fall it up, start needle felt ing the tip here you want to create a triangle, Lights pokes nothing too heavy. Light, short pokes. And I'm just tucking in those loose wipers and making a somewhat over triangle could play around with it with my fingers there and then maybe give this a little trim. Let's add we're gonna add a tiny little line down the front. Very little will. I'm gonna poke that down the middle, like folks. I just want a hint of that long there, and then we're gonna go the other way. It will be like an upside down t You want a thrill into your fingers a little bit? Just a little piece and bring that right across. Just continue. Noodle felt that till that's in there. He started to come alive 3. Eye, Eye Captain: So I have these little eyes that have stems on them. They actually a little screw top. Little screw end, so on glue may not be necessary, but if there wasn't a screw, I would definitely glue them. And I believe these Air four millimeter. So what I do is I like to use my scissor and I snip you're gonna snippet right above the bridge of the nose. So you snippet and poke. And I like to put in as soon as I snippet, cause sometimes I can't find that whole Place it right in there and then snip coke snipping , Poke. He started to come alive. Now we're gonna add a brow like an eyelid to make it a little bit more realistic. Take a little piece of wool again. You don't need much. Start with less. I kind of roll it up and my fingers. So I think this is even too long. Where is that? Maybe an inch. Roll it up. You're gonna start felt ing right in the corner groups in a corner of the eye here, like pokes and then bring this around. See, I just brought that right around and give it a poke on the side There. Light light. You want to kind of cover up the top half of the I see how that's coming over there. This one's exposed. So let's do the same on that side. A little bit of wool kind of roll it in your fingers just a little Start here on the inner corner and then bring it around through the profile. Now I'm gonna add a little wool right in here to the top to kind of close in that gap again . Just a little. Let's bring that right there. A couple of small pokes Bring it, blend it right into the back. You see how lightly I'm felt ing? I'm not going deep a light touch now to make the eyes look a little bit more realistic. I always had a little bit of black in here to kind of soften up the hard edges of the beach . You could also use Ah, Brown, Um, but let's stick with the black. It's such a little piece, like a couple of eyelashes, and I roll it between my fingers again. I'm starting from the inside corner and then just bring it around, kind of make it more almond shaped. I don't know if you could see the difference there. Let me have a little bit more. Just a little bit more. And then you could bring Bring it down a little bit black in this corner here. Just a tiny bit in the corner. Trim off these pieces here. Blow him away. Do you see the difference in the eyes? Let's do the same here a little bit. I rule it between my fingers. A little poke in the corner. Bring it out a little light, folks. Late folks. It's true, Matt. And I'm gonna put a little in here. Could be very messy sometimes. And then a little in there. All right, I think he's really cute. 4. Ear Ye! Ear Ye!: Let's start on some years. Take a little bit of wool. Place it on my iPad. I'm just gonna start pelting. Then I'm gonna kind of shape creative outline with my needle there of a triangle and then fold these ends over into the triangle. You see, I'm not really needle felt ing this end because that's the end that's gonna be connected to the to the head. People felt that. Take it off your pad. Every once in a while, needle fell from the other side. Bring those. You clean that up. Now what I do sometimes now I'll show you. You can clean this up. I trimming that or I sometimes squeeze it between my fingers groups and needle felt those those ends in while squeezing You. See, you could do that as well. I think this is probably gonna be way too long. Sometimes I actually attached the ears to the dog very long and then trim them in place. But let's rip off a little bit. If your dog's ears, they're going to stand up, you might want to add a little coloring here, maybe some pink or brown or beige. So I have a little bit of pink here. So little you can't even see it. So I'm gonna lightly needle felt that in. I'm not poking very hard and through to the match very lightly. So you don't want it to kind of come through on the other side. Looks like a little bunny here. No, but I like to do. Sometimes they take this tool. I don't Funny. I don't needle felt with this one as often as some people, but I like to kind of give it a little bit of a a rub, and it helps to curve the ear a little. I don't know what you know if it's really doing much, but it flattens out those fibers a little gives it a little bit of a curl. You could see I have some stragglers here. That would be your ear. I still think this is a little a little long tears at all. So here we have a set of years. I want to show you. When I was talking about how you're gonna lightly needle felt that color over it so that hardly any of it comes through to the back. If it did, you could always just take a little bit of wool and cover that up. So now here's a sample of one that was needle felted too hard. And you see what happens. This comes through the back and you don't want that to happen. So so we have our two years, and you see there are a little angle down. I did cut them a little. And if you are going to cut where the scissor kind of pull at those fibers a little so you don't want a straight sharp edge. We have our ears. These are a little long, but I'm gonna make my dog's ears flop down. So what I do is I pin the inside part back here, almost line it up with the I, and then I fold this over and another pin. So when I fold it down, it would be like that. So at this point would take a little bit of wool start to needle, felt the ear to the head, even go right over those pins. We'll just pull him out later. Lightly. A little bit more wool to this portion here, trying to connect the ear to the head. We could probably take this pin out now and then I'd add a little bit more will in here. I was trying to connect those those pieces to it. What? In the back? Give her a couple pokes a little bit more, Will. My world is kind of dirty and lightly connect that year to the back of the head. You have to kind of play around with it a little bit. That's gonna be fold it down like Okay , now that we have both of the years attached, I'm gonna fold them down and then give them the little poke. I attach it right to the head, right to the side of the head. Now, I'm gonna add a little bit of wool in here and just lightly, just a wisp. There. You have a little dog's head. You can make those years longer. You could make one up one down. You could add a little color. And here, if you wanted to to add some dimension, maybe a little bit of of a little bit of gray. Teoh, differentiate between these two pieces, you could pull these brows out a little. We could pull those out a little. You can use a straight needle or your needle felted needle and pull those out. Just a little 5. A Body of Work: thanks. Part we're gonna do is we're gonna start on the body and then we'll connect ahead to the body and then add the ears. So I have a piece of wool here. Piece of core wool. See how much I took these ends in and start to roll and then give it a couple of pokes. You're kind of making a burrito. A couple of cokes continue rolling and a couple of poker a couple of pokes on this end, and then a couple of folks on this end, and then I roll it between the palms of my hand. You have a piece like that that will become a body. OK, now it's time to connect the head to the body. So this doesn't have to be that long at this point so we can cut that down a little. So let's cut that pipe cleaner down. Let's fold this end over, so when you poke it through, it doesn't catch on to the fibers, So we have a nice, smooth edge here. So we've got our body here with my very sharp scissors. I'm going to snip and poke towards the back, You see, not in the center more towards the back of the body and then in search the hood. You know, now we're gonna close up that gap with just a little will again. A little wool at a time. It's filling that gap. 6. Paws Please: So now we're gonna start on the legs. So I have a pipe cleaning here that I cut about three inches and I'm gonna fold this edge over here. So we have a smooth and here you take some core bull. Very small amount, thin amount. I'm gonna start wrapping the leg. I'm gonna hold this school and twist it and wrap the leg so they get to the bottom, they're going to cover the tip and then bring it back up. You wouldn't rapid pretty tightly similar to what we did with this now. Same exact thing that we did with this now. But you see, it's a little too thin here, so we're gonna add a little bit more to the top edge. You can kind of connect a little bit here and then start to roll up and connect that. That's the start of the leg. It's a little thinner down here. Then we're gonna fold this at a right angle, and that's gonna become the paw. So grab a little bit of wool kind of bunch it up in my hand, gonna start covering that area. Let's take this away to create a part lifted off your pad. Every once in a while, people felt that on top. Kind of bring it around to the back. You will float that to the back. Short, fast strokes. They end up with something like this. Now we're gonna add the toes to the paw. So I have some will here, and I'm gonna kind of scrunch it up into a ball like one end of it. Leave a little bit left here trying to needle felt that a little ball play with it in my fingers a little that I'm gonna add it to the Paul here. A couple of folks bring that down a little. It's not the easiest thing to do these because there they're small. Okay, that's one you're gonna create. Four of them is gonna be one here. Too little on the side. 34 So you four separate four separate toes, then you can kind of perfected a little You that now to make it a little bit more realistic . What's that? A little bit of black between each toe. So again, the tiniest piece places between where the toes and needle felt that and continue to do that. So the rest of them. - Here you have the Paul through the pa pads, so you have a little piece of black hair and throw it up in your fingers to make a little ball good. That a poke in there? Trim that and then just continue to do the rest. We're gonna add the middle pad, and that's kind of like a heart shape. Grab some of your world and you can create a little heart. Trim this and it's an upside down heart here you have upon on the leg. 7. Legs: See Attached: Now it's time to attach the lakes to the body. Let's grab one leg. We're gonna place it on the side. You kind of creating a tripod or triangle Here, grab a little bit of wool. Place it over the joint start Needle felt thing. Not to the Just enough to connect the fibers. Okay. And then we can add a little bit more around here to shake this out a little bit. Kind of bring this in here. - So I have an easy way to attach the back legs. I grabbed a little bit of whoa and form it into an oval shape. This will become his back kind leg. China's creating like a little little to No, something like that. Well, we dio just place that right here. Give it a couple of folks. You start to see this leg appear. Do you want to add a little wool right over here? Kind of connected a little bit more and secure it. Now you could shape it a little with a back paw. It's gonna be similar to the front. Let's bend this over. I would say at least an inch. This is gonna become his par and then bend that up. So then we could snipped this off. Leave about that much pipe cleaner that's gonna be inserted into the back leg so that we take our wool just like we did with all the other ones we were wrapping. You can actually straighten this out at this point and wrap, remember, wrapped tightly. Bring that over the front. Continue to right back. You know what much Rip that off, get a couple of pokes wrap that, actually a little tighter. And then you could full this up, and then you're going to add just a little bit more wool in the front here, just the same where you did with the front paws. And then you make your little toes just like you did with the front. If you want to turn it over and give it a couple of pokes on this side flooding that down and then start adding your toes, you'll make two of those. So once you have the back portion done, it's time to insert the leg. So I created a back leg similar to the way I created the front. I'm going to cut a hole right here in the back and then insert this leg. Then I use a little bit of will to kind of smooth that joint out. Just make that little joint disappear a little, a little bit more well, and there you have and he sits. Sits perfectly now in the back here, you could see you could use a little smoothing out here so you can at a little will just smooth that out. Just a whisper full that you could do this before you add the tail for after or both. I see little pipe cleaner sticking out here. We'll just cover that with some more will Or next time I cut my pipe cleaner a little shorter. Have to make a tale. I would take a small pipe cleaner again. I'd like Teoh been the ends. No short points and we're going to wrap it. I leave this end exposed convertible rap. Alright, bring that over the tip and then wrap back down, get a couple of folks maybe should be a little fatter. You could just add a little bit more will and you could just continue to build up depending how thick you want that we have her dog and yet. We're gonna poke a hole in his, But just like that, sniffed, poke went very sharp. Scissors. Place that in there. And then add a little wool around here to seal the deal. Make sure that tail stays in there. No, You have Kip, little puppy. 8. It's All in the Details: So now that you're puppies done, you might want to add a couple of details. For instance, you might want to add a little collar here. I cut a piece of felt and then just needle felted it into the back. But you can also felt a collar. I added a little pink for his belly. What I also like about putting the wires in the neck is that now I can tilt his head a little, which I think is always adorable. And then why not bend his paw? Look how cute that is. So you can kind of position him. I hope you enjoy this tutorial. Please leave any feedback and let me know what else you'd like me to make. Bye bye.