Fleecewood - Felting

	Needle felting is an easy and quick way to make felt dolls, animals or other 3-dimensional felt. It is an extremely effective technique for sculpturing fine detail in felt, such as faces, for joining pieces of felt together, and for adding embellishments to material and flat felt and even socks. It is possible to felt synthetic fibres using this technique, though it takes more effort than felting wool. In short, how did we ever manage without felting needles!
	Needle felting is essentially a dry felting technique, so it is easily portable and a great activity for busy hands during meetings and TV watching. Felting needles can also be extremely useful in wet felting situations. Just make sure you dry the needles afterwards to prevent them from rusting.All you need to needle felt are felting needles and a project to work on. It is also useful to have a sponge or polystyrene block to form a penetrable surface under the work in some situations.
	Felting needles are made from carbon steel and are 3 or 3½ inches (76 or 89mm) long and 2mm or less in diameter. An L-shaped hook at one end makes the needles easier to hold and allows them to be fitted in multi-needle handles (punches), or needle beds for industrial use. The other end of the needle typically has a triangular cross-section that tapers to a very sharp point. However, star needles have a groove in the flat surfaces of the the triangular cross-section, which decreases the penetration resistance and makes them easier to use in felt that has firmed up.
	A series of barbs occur along one or more edges of the triangular cross-section part of the needle. When the needle is plunged into wool, the barbs cause the wool fiberes to move and tangle, thus creating felt. Differences in barb frequency and spacing, and differences in needle length and diameter of the triangular cross-section (gauge) assist with special applications. I have experimented with a wide range of needles and have selected seven different varieties as being sufficiently different to be useful for the various applications likely to be encountered in handcraft use. This selection also allows for variation in personal preferences. To make it easy to identify and order the different needles, Fleecewood felting needles are colour coded:

Needles

Needle Packs
Needle selections are also available in packs accompanied by an instruction sheet.
Instruction sheets from the packs are available separately.

Starter Pack
Contains a blue and a pink needle - an excellent combination to get started.

Sculpturing Pack
Contains a green and an orange needle - designed to complement the starter pack and ideal for more involved sculpturing projects.

Long Needles Pack
Contains a mauve and a yellow needle - for those who have a project suited to longer needles, or who simply prefer working with the longer needles.

Comprehensive Needle Pack
Contains six needles, one of each of green, blue, pink, orange, mauve and yellow. All you need for a wide variety of handcraft needle felting applications

Frustrated by the time it takes to needle felt larger projects?
Needle felting punches are for you. A punch is a handle that holds several needles of the same type and it speeds up the process proportionately. I stock an easy-to-use needle punch with nicely turned wooden handle and six needles, that can be arranged in several ways for different applications.

Need other Supplies?
I have 50 g packs of washed sliver (roving) in a range of natural colours, hand picked fleece locks, chenille pipecleaners and seed beads (for eyes).

Needle Felting Gift Packs
Gift packaged needle felling kits with detailed instructions and all your need to finish the project.

All needles are available individually. Ten of the same needle type attract a discount. ~	Ordering
Red 3" long, 36 gauge, star cross-section, 2x2x2 barbs. An excellent general purpose needle, easy to use.
Green 3" long, 36 gauge, triangular cross-section, 3x3x3 barbs. A very fast needle, useful in the early stages of felting, including forming felt balls prior to shaping or quickly forming deep depressions in softly felted balls. The green needle has a high penetration resistance and becomes difficult to use as felt becomes firmer. Its strong action it will quickly draw fibre right though flat felt and leave a hairy" texture on the under side. Be careful when using it with different layers of colour.
Blue 3" long, 36 gauge, triangular cross-section, 8xOxO barbs. A fast needle, easier to use than green as felt firms up, but more likely to break. Excellent for concentrating felting action on one side of the needle, such as forming eye sockets, adding embellishments and splicing yarn. Also useful for early stages of felting pieces of felt together, but finish with orange needle.
Pink 3" long, 32 gauge. triangular cross-section, 3x3x0 barbs Good general purpose needle for felting at depth in balls to change their shape and a good choice when the green needle becomes difficult to use. Also useful for drawing fibres into a thin area of felt and joining pieces of felt together. Finish with the orange needle.
Orange 3" long, 40 gauge, triangular cross-section, 2x2x2 barb Fine finishing needle, minimises puncture marks on the finished surface. Barbs are very close together and ideal for working a surface skin over a softer felt underneath. Good for adding embellishments where there is a risk of damaging the embellishment with coarser needles.
Mauve 3½" long, 36 gauge triangular cross-section, 2x2x2 barb Good general purpose needle, especially where a longer needle is called for. Ideal for thickening up thin areas and holes in felt.
Yellow 3½" long, 40 gauge, triangular cross-section, 2x2x2 barb Finishing needle. Minimises puncture marks on finished surface, but works over a greater depth than the orange needle. Good for adding embellishments.