Needlefelt a Bumble Bee: For beginners

1. Trailer and Class Description: Hey, guys, I'm Ramona MacLean, and I got into needle-felting this past Christmas when I decided to make 16 mice for my closest friends and family. But I was hooked. Today, we are going to be learning how to make these cute little bumblebees, a really great beginner project for someone who wants to dip their toe into needle-felting, or because you just like the cute bee and you want to go ahead and try it out. In this class, we're going to be using different supplies. You will need coarse wool for the base, yellow roving wool for the covering of the bee, black roving wool for the stripes and the face, blue roving wool for the wings, a little tiny bit of pink roving wool for the cheeks. Besides that, you're going to use a sort of styrofoam base that you can stab into. You will also need scissors, a piece of paper and a pencil that you can draw your design on. Then, of course, we have needles. Join me in the class. I can't wait to get started. 2. Supplies: Here are our supplies that we will be working with. Over here we have our colors. This will be roving wool, which is that soft nice wool. This is coarse wool, which is just a little bit easier for making your base. So when you roll it up and you start stabbing into it, it stays thicker and it doesn't take as long to make your shape. So it's really great to use this for a base and then put this kind of wool over top to make it look nice and smooth. These are our wool. We have a light blue for the wings. Here is my demo, so you can see what I'm talking about. So here we have the wings. And you don't need a lot of that. And then for the base color, I have sort of orangey yellow, yellowy orange, which is a little bit different than this color, but I wanted to change it up for my second one just to have a little bit of a change in the look for that bumblebee, but you can use more yellow or orange up to you. And then, of course, we have black for the stripes and the eyes and the mouth on the bee. Optional is pink. So for the blush there, I'll show you had to do that, but you don't have to do it. You only need a very small amount of that pink. And then of course, we have needles. I have a bunch of needles in a little set that came with a kit that I bought that just gave sort of sample colors of everything, as well as a whole bunch of needles. I'm not going to get too deep into needle sizes, but this is probably about the mid range. It's not the biggest and it's not the smallest because the project I'm working on is a small project. I don't necessarily need the really big needles for this one, but I don't want to go too small because then it's going to take me forever. Now, you can buy handle for your needles, which makes it a lot more comfortable. They're wooden. I personally, I have one, but I do not know where it is at the moment, which is unfortunate. But that's right. We can still do it with this. And if you do have a kit like this without a handle, you can always sort of duct tape, like, put some fuzz or something and then put duct tape so you have something to hold onto it just so it's a little bit more comfortable than just the needle itself. Then we have this sort of styrofoamy a bit, and that is just so that when you're stabbing, you're going to stab through your bee. This way, you're not going to be stabbing the table because if you constantly do that with your needle, it's going to probably break or damage whatever surface you are stabbing on. You do bean bags. Something that the needle can go through without breaking it would be good. Those are all of our tools. However, the other thing you can use is a piece of paper with the dimensions of your project. We'll get into this a little bit more later. But basically, this B is roughly that size and turn this way, it's this way. That way you can keep looking back at it to make sure that your size is okay. This project doesn't have a huge need for that as it's just a bumblebee, but especially for the more advanced ones that are weird shapes, you're definitely going to want to have a guide of some kind so that you can look at it and make sure that your proportions are correct. Let's move on to making O B. 3. Bee base 1: Are ready to start our B. So we have our course wool here, which is roughly about four or five times the size of this B when it is unraveled. The main thing to think about is rolling this as tight as you can. I'm going to place it on my base, and you can do it on the table as well. You don't necessarily need this for this part, but go as tight as you can, and then pull in the sides it's okay if the beginning is a bit more of a circle or a lump. But as you go, just pull that in pushing down and pulling in to tighten that shape. So as we go, it's going to get bigger and bigger. So here I'm left with this rough shape, but I'm going to be careful not to let go of this because if I let go of this, the whole thing is going to unravel and I have to do it again. If you get to this part and it feels like there's a whole bunch of bits kind of stabbing out everywhere, I would re roll it because it's going to take you a lot less time to re roll it than it is to stab it when it is very large. From here, I take my needle, and I'm going to stab into the felt. Wherever I stick this needle, it's going to create a seam that's joining it together. Wherever I stab this needle, it's going to join that bit together. Because this is coarse wool, it is a lot firmer than if I was using roving wool. I'm just going to stab and see this line that I've created here. I know that this part is pretty safe. If I move my fingers from that, it will be okay. So I'm going to go around. I'm just going to kind of create a seam just along it to make sure that this thing isn't just going to fall apart as soon as I let go. It's okay. That's a bit of a wonky shape because I'm going to push this inwards as well. And whichever direction you are stabbing the needle, right? If I come down this way, I'm pushing this top wool straight down. And if I'm coming on the side, I want to push from the side straight in. So I want to change my direction as I stab. During the process, you may poke yourself, and it is not a fun experience. These needles have barbs on either side, which allows the wool as you're poking in and pulling out for that to stick together. However, they're very sharp. And so if you stab into yourself as you do it, it's going to be very painful. You can wear some guards on your fingers, maybe like the ends of rubber gloves or something like that. I don't like to do that because of the dexterity. So I just need to be careful as I'm stabbing not to go towards my fingers. Alright. Now that I have finished putting everything kind of in its place so it's not going to move around. All I'm going to do is just stab the whole thing. I'm just going to go slowly around the edge. And at first, you're going to see a lot of these holes from the needle. But as I go, it's going to firm up and get smaller and smaller and firmer and firmer. And you just want to kind of rotate it and make sure that needle is going straight into that ball there for this B. And you can hold it up to your drawing and just make sure that the shape is roughly what you want it. But first, I'm just going to kind of tighten everything up, knowing that the shape I want is a little bit more oblong than it is round. So a little bit smaller on the front and longer on the side. You may have to constantly remind yourself during this process to relax. It's very easy to stiffen up your hand and your shoulder as you're doing it. But just kind of give yourself a reminder, every so often be like, relax. Sometimes I clench my teeth when I do it, and I don't know why. There's no need for it. But I think just because the stabbing process can take a little bit of force, we tend to stiffen up. So every so often just go. It's okay. I don't have to go quite so hard. Stabbing. 4. Bee base 2: As I'm doing this, I'm just constantly turning it to make sure that all these bumps and all these parts that aren't very firm are going in to the shape and we're smoothening it out and making sure that that it all good. When I do the sides, I do want to make it a little bit flat on the front so that when I put the face in, we're getting a pretty flat surface. It's still a little bit rounded. But the way you round it is as you come around the corner here, you're going to adjust your needle in the direction that it's going. Start here and then turn it as you go. At this stage, it's starting to look a little sheep like, so we're seeing lots of these little tufts. Keep going. If you were making a sheep, this might be a good place to stop, but we are not, so we want this to be quite firm and quite smooth all the way around. Another thing you can do while you're shaping it is use your fingers and kind of squish it in the shape you want. So if you squish it this way, it will stretch out a little. And if you want it to squish in a little bit, you can use it with your fingers this way. In that way, it will just kind of push it into the right shape while the needle is putting everything together. So that's a really good way to help shape your bee. Well, I'm just going to double check my drawing here. Okay, so we are roughly the size that I wanted. However, I do want to firm it up, so it probably will get a little smaller than this. I will be putting this wool on top, the roving wool. So it's alright if it's a little bit smaller than what it shows. But you want it pretty close because as you're stabbing the roving wool in as well, it's still going to compress. So here, I'll check that, and that's roughly that shape as well. So I'll just keep going firm it up a little bit more until I'm happy with it. You want it to feel quite firm, but have a little bit of give. The firmer you go, the easier it's going to be to keep things in place. But if it's so firm, sticking these eyes in here are going to be difficult. So you want it quite firm. This is still a little too squishy. I don't know if you can see that. Yeah. I just want to firm that up and smooth it out just a little bit more, but we're getting the right shape, which is awesome. I've made this pretty firm. Before I move on to the next step, I just want to make sure that there are no sort of areas that are especially squishy. So over here is a little bit squishier than the rest, so I'm just going to get that. And look at my shape. I want to make sure that this front part is a little bit flat for the face, and then eases out towards the body. I think that's pretty good. Looking at my other one here, this is a little smaller, which is fine because I still have more to put on. So it's pretty good size wise. I can also check my piece of paper here. It's a little bit smaller but not too bad. This one as well. I think I am ready for the next 5. Yellow Body: Now we are ready to put on the coating to this bee. So that's the yellow right on here. I'm going to take out this boll and kind of pull it apart so that it's kind of flat. Gonna try to make it as even as possible. So when you are working with roving wool or coarse wool, you don't want to cut it ever because as soon as you cut it, you're getting a harsh line. But what you want to do is just gently pull it away because it will pull apart. So I'm just going to pull this out. Then I'm going to take my B, stick it down, and then roll this around it. And again, we want to keep this pretty tight. And I want to make sure that this wool is covering all that white. So I've sort of made a tube here. You can see there's some white there. That's right, all this can kind of fold over. So you do want this to be a little bit farther than that edge here. So there might be a few white spots in the middle here. I'll try to cover them, but if I need to, I can always take a little bit more wool and then fill it up. So you're going to do the exact same thing. You're just going to stab. And you'll probably see the holes a little bit better, especially if you're using a large needle. I might switch to a slightly smaller one. Yeah, so that's just going in a little bit easier. There's places where you can look up sizes specifically of your needles. I don't know them. I just know some are bigger, some are smaller. You can get slightly different shapes. Some are triangles, some are squares, maybe, or just round. They all have their purpose, but I usually stick with the triangular ones and then just kind of use whatever I got in my basic kit that I ordered. So, again, I want to make that seem kind of across to make sure that nothing is going to be moving all over the place. That way, if I let go of my hands, it doesn't all fall apart. Okay, so that's all kind of put in place. Now, rounding that corner can kind of fold it in on itself, but I'm going to try to cover all the white. So turn it and then stab straight down from that angle so that it can kind of curve with the shape that you already have. And I would say, at this point, you don't have to stab quite so far into the wool. It's pretty firm underneath. So as long as I'm getting this wool kind of down a little bit into that base, it'll stay put. So I can relax a little bit. I don't have to be so tense as I am stabbing. I've worked on this for a little while now, and it's looking pretty good. There are a few spots, however, that have a little bit of white showing through. So I'm going to do is take my roving wool, just take a little piece, just gently tug it out. And then keeping it pretty fluffy, I don't want to pack it down too much because then it's going to be very obvious where I stuck in the bed. Sorry, there's a little black spec in there. Don't want that. So it's still pretty fluffy here. I'm just going to stick that right on top. Of that white spot and stuff it. When you're happy with the look of the color, and everything is pretty firm, you're not getting too many little bits kind of fluffing out. Then we are on to the black. So join me in the next video. 6. Black stripes: We are now ready to add the black stripes onto our B. So these are going around the B, and you can see that spacing wise, the head has a little bit more space around it than the back does. So we need to know which side is going to be our face and which is going to be our butt, and then we can place the first line of black a little bit farther. I'm gonna go in here, grab my black, pull it out. And here, I want to try to get it into a bit of a line, which is not always the easiest thing, as the stuff can get a little bit knotted sometimes, but try that. So if I decide that this is gonna be the face, I'm going to take this piece and make sure that it's not too fuzzy, pulling it together a little bit. And then you want enough that it can wrap around a little bit farther than itself. So I'm just going to start stabbing this to make sure that it gets in place before I start moving the other side. And I'm going to go down the middle mostly because if there's bits on the outside that I want to stuff in, I can always push them in a little bit, but we're going to start just with that middle bit. And make sure that it's roughly the same thickness as you go along, so I don't want to make it too thin. Then here it's getting really wild. So we just want to pull that in. Make sure it's still going at the same spot all the way around. Now that I can let the other go. I'm gonna go back to this side. Make sure that's not too thick. Pull that around and then stab down the middle. I probably want to make this part a little bit skinnier. So let's just check, make sure it's all evenly put around the face. I'm gonna push this in a little. Then here, because it gets a little bit skinnier, I'm going to widen it out a bit. Alright, so everything is in place. Now I can go around. And the thick parts, I can push in a little. And the thinner parts, I can make sure that they don't get too thin. So you want to be careful here that as you're stabbing in, because what you're doing is you're making this area push in, if you stab it so much that it starts to get an indent, you just want to stab kind of near it so that it blends in, so you don't have this indent of the black line. So because I'm stabbing this on the angle here, it's pushing everything this way. Whereas if I went straight down, it would keep it in that place. So that's why I'm going at that angle. And if you put this down in the wrong spot and you don't like it, you can just pull it off. Just find the end, grab it and pull it off. That's the beauty of needle-felting is it's very forgiving. If you put something in the wrong spot, as long as you know, you don't stab it so far in, you can just pick it up and do it again. So now for number two, grab some more of that Black. And here we go. So we've got those two lines, some crazy black strings or wool bits going everywhere, but we can just trim that off. So let's go ahead and trim. So I'm just using these little scissors just to get the sides of that. Oh. The black, you can see the most. So this is probably where you will want to cut it the most. We will also be doing a technique at the end that will smooth everything out with our needle. So it's okay if it doesn't look perfect at this stage, as well. So let's move on to the wings. 7. Wings: We're going to do the wings of RB, here is this guy. Here's the same one. You can draw it out on your sheet of paper if you want to make sure that the shape is right, but you can also just measure it as you go. I'm going to pull this back because I'm going to be using this. This is a really important time to use this because we are going to be essentially turning this flat and we need to stab it into something that's going to be thicker than this roving wall. That's make this into a bit of a wine. Don't want it too thick. I'm going to take something that's roughly about that size. It's not too thick, just a thin layer. Then I'm going to put it onto my block and start stabbing so that it's turning into a flat surface. I'm not going to worry so much about these bits because we're going to be folding those in. So every so often, you want to pull this off of your base because it's going to be attaching itself to this, and we don't actually want that. So then I'm going to fold this in half. I don't want it too skinny. But something like that, if this is the B, right? And this is here, it's about the width I want of that wing. So then I'm just going to keep going. Now we're going to fold the edges in. This might be a little bit too on, so I'm just going to pull some of that off on either side, so it's a little bit shorter. I want to probably double the size of what I want the wings to be in the end. I'm just holding that in I just securing it in place so that those bits aren't going anywhere. And I'm going to fold the other side in as well. So you want to know where that middle is because that middle we're going to make smaller, and then the wings are going to be formed out of these two sides. So you want them to be the same with So here, I've kind of glued these two bits together. So if I pull that off, you can see I've kind of got these two hollow bits, but we are going to firm that down. I just want to make sure that that's really in the middle. Right now, it looks like this one's a little bit shorter than that one. So I'm going to stab a little bit here. Now I'm going to start stabbing this part together and sort of flatten it. And as you're doing this, you can kind of stab the middle part in right at that middle. Then you can flip it over and do the other side. And you can start to shape at this point the ends because we're going to curve these in. So if you take your needle and you push it this way, get some of those ends going in, then it will start to make the shape of these wings. So I'm just going to compare the size to my B right now. It's folded up. This is the head. Yeah, so it's roughly the size. I just need to make sure that I smooth it out and make sure the shape is really nice. When you have finished your wings, we can attach it to your B. So think about which side you want to be the head and which you want to be top and bottom. So I think I want this to be the top and that to be the head. So I'm going to place it right in the middle. Kind of between the two lines, push it down, and then you can start to stab right in the middle of those wings. So flip it up after a bit to make sure that it looks the same on both sides. This wing looks a little bit bigger than this one. I'm just going to go a little bit further into this wing where it attaches. You want to stab for quite a while just to make sure that it's really in there. If you put it in the wrong spot, all you have to do is grab and tug and the whole thing will come out and you can just move it and reposition it. Let's move on to the face. 8. Face: Time to do the face. So if you got Nita felting kit, sometimes they give you little beads that you could just stick in for the eyes. Personally, I think it looks a little bit cuter if you just use the wool. So I will show you how to do that. And if you do have the beads, you can always just stick them in. We are working with very small amounts of wool. So here, this was just a little bit leftover I had, but you just take a little pit. And roll it up. I need a little bit more than that. So I'm just gonna take it in my palm and use my fingers to roll it as small as I can. Okay. So putting it on is that roughly the size I want? It will be a bit smaller than this, maybe half the size. So I think that's pretty good. I might take out a little bit. Make it a bit smaller. Roll it? So I want to do two of these before I stick them in. So I know kind of roughly the size that I'm making will be the same. All right. So here's my two. So this one's a little bit bigger than that one, so I'm just going to take off a little bit of that. And then re roll it up. Check it again. It's close. So I think that's close enough that I can just go ahead and stick it in. Grab the first one and place it where I want that to go. Then go right in the middle of that and just keep stabbing without fully taking it out. And then you're going to go to the outside and kind of pull it in to the shape that you want. This is where it comes in handy to have a very firm face because if it is soft, then anytime you stab that black in, it's not going to stay. So I'm just going to firm this up a little bit just to make sure that I'll be good. Okay, then I'm going to go back in stuff that in And if you need it to be a little bit bigger, you can always just take it and kind of widen it out a little bit. Before I get too far with that, I'm going to put the other one in go in the middle. Start stepping it down. And then go, is that right? Do I want them in those spots? I think that's pretty good for mine. I'm pretty happy with that placement. You can sort of tweak it a little by pushing it out a bit and then put it down. Okay. So those are my eyes. Next we're going to do the mouth. So it's just a little tiny smile there. Then I'm going to take a small piece of black and I want to twist it and try to get roughly the same thickness going along. I I twist it like that, that makes it nice and solid and easy to work with. I'm going to grab that with these two fingers. Make sure it's really twisted, put it down. You might have to keep re twisting it to get it in the right spot. That'd be a funny mouth. Then just push in the middle. And you want to get it pretty in there. From there, let's go to a mustache a little bit. So then twist up one side and pull it in the direction that you want. One trick you can do is kind of go on the trajectory that you would like it to go with just your needle first. Then that gives you a bit of an indent for where to stick it. And as you go, stick it down. And if it's curved, then you need to kind of move it slightly after you get the next bit in. So you want to go a little bit farther than you think. And then pull back a little to see, like, how far that's actually gonna go. So that looks pretty good. I'm gonna do it on the other side. We make a path. Keep twisting it. Adjust it. It looks a little crazy right now, but that's okay. Then what you're going to do is take it back the way it came. So twist it again. Okay. And then you can cut it. So this is one of the rare times that you can cut wool because we are going to be stuffing all of this into the shape we already have. And there's our little Be face. 9. Blush: Now we're going to add on some little blush bits, so you can see this guy's chin is a little more pronounced than this one. So this is just in the shape. If I wanted this to look a little bit more like this, I would just have to stab it more at the bottom or make sure the head here wasn't quite so big. He's just a little chubby guy. And we're going to add some pink blush to his cheeks. You do not need very much for this if you want to add it, take just a bit. So you want them to be roughly the same size for the two sides. We are going to roll it in a ball this time, but we're going to keep it a really loose ball. Something kind of like that. You don't want it to be too tight. Looks like it's got a little bit more. Take some of that out. So here, I'm just gonna put it where I want it. Look at the size. Is that bigger than I want it to be or right? I might take a little bit of this out. I'm going to place it on the cheek. And because there isn't very tight ball, this is going to look sort of like a blended on the cheeks. This color is darker. The B color I have now is darker than my last one, so you won't see this quite obviously, but maybe that's nice. Blends in a little. So there's one side, and then we'll get the other side and pull some of that out. Arrange it into the shape that you like. So I don't totally love the placement of that. I'm gonna pull it off and stick it right back down. So if you want it to be more of a round blush, just make sure the shape that you're putting down is pretty round. If you want it just to be kind of, like, more like this one, like, on the cheek, but sort of blended out into the color of the bee, then you can make the shape a little bit more wonky. So I'll show you the two different ones here. This one's more of a round shape. And this is more of just near the cheeks. There you go. We have our bee. 10. Finishing Touches: Wanted to give you a tip on how to kind of make sure it's a little bit more put together at the end. So what you can do is take your smallest needle and go along the outside and just sort of, like, very lightly tuck everything in. So this isn't a big stabbing this way, some nice sideways, just to get all these bits here kind of back in place. And here you could try another round of snipping because these black bits are very noticeable. And then you can just come along. And he is kind of a side. But maybe you want your B to be a little bit more fuzzy, so maybe you'll leave it. 11. Closing Thoughts: Well, now you have your little B. So thanks so much for taking this class, guys. Please take photos of your projects and post it for all of us to see. I'm sure we'd love to see your little B and any in progress photos or comments that you have, as well. If you want to follow me, I have my Instagram and my website linked, so you can see the other stuff I've done and check out my other classes, especially if you're into drawing or painting or anything art related. Until next time,