Felting needles and felting supplies from Pacific Wool and Fiber

Create a felted work of art with our Colonial Felt-By-Number Kits. Transfer creative iron-on designs to garments, accessories or home décor items of your choice. Then, all you do is “paint” the picture using our colorful wool fibers and felting needles. Kits comes complete with iron-on transfers, guide sheets, a foam block, 2 felting needles and wool. $19.95 each

Let it Snow Flamingo Road Hot Fuzzy Love

Crab Dancing Big Fish Little Fish Quantity

NEW! Ashford Needle Felting Kits

Cute, cute cute! These Ashford Needle Felting kits are easy and fast! Choose from a friendly and cute Beagle or set of three flirty butterflies. The Butterflies kit comes complete with fiber, felting needle, felting pad and instructions. The Beagle kit comes with fiber, wire and instruction will require your to purchase felting needles and pad.

Ashford Needle Felting Kit
Quantity
Beagle- $21.50 Butterflies- $25.50

NEW! Ashford Merino Silk Scarf Felting Kit Ashford Scarf Felting Kit

Felt a luxurious Merino Silk Scarf! The Ashford Scarf Felting Kit is an easy wet felting project, perfect as a gift or just treat yourself. The Ashford Scarf Felting Kit comes complete with Silk Chiffon, Merino-Silk wool and instructions. Seven luscious colors to choose from!

Clover Needle Felting Molds Clover needle felting mold

Have fun!! Create unique felted designs the easy way. Clover Needle Felting Molds give you the perfect shapes! Attach to your favorite felt purse, bag or hat, embellish garments and much much more! Use Clover Needle Felting Molds with single felting needle or Clover Pen Style Felting Needle Tool (below) Felting needle pad required. Choose from eight fun Clover designs! $6.50 each.

$6.50 each Quantity

felting flowers felt flowers felt animals

Rose Daisy Pansy Hedgehog & Mushrooms

clover felting molds felt butterfly

Floret & Berries Snow Crystal Rabbit Butterfly

NEW! Colonial Needle Felting Starter Kit

Ready, set, felt! All you need to get started! Needle Felting Starter Kit includes 3 types of felting needles, wool fiber in six colors, foam pad and Step by Step Instructions. Kit includes designs for Felted Flowers and Butterflies.

Felting Needle Kit, Basic

felting needle kit Learn a new craft! Felting is easy to do and rewarding as well. Felting needles allow you to sculpt your work or add details that you can not obtain when felting with water and soap. Kit contains foam pad, four felting needles, and instructions on use and how to make a felted coaster. Fiber not included

Ashford Felting Project Kit

This fun Ashford Felting Kit includes 14 oz of carded New Zealand Corriedale Sliver in 12 colors, the book "Felting Needle Projects" from Ashford and two felting needles. A great way to get started in needle felting. Other Ashford felting wool sets below. Click to enlarge.

Clover Pen Style Felting Needle Tool

The Pen Style Needle Felting Tool from Clover allows application of small or delicate materials using one, two, or three needles. The tool can be adjusted to two length of needle sizes that can be used with the Needle Felting Molds (sold separately) for creating 3-dimensional design and applique. The handle offers ease of use because of the "Pen Style" grip action. Easy replacement of thick and thin needles.

Felting Needle Punch

Wooden Ashford felting needle punch that allows you to store felting needles inside the punch when not in use. A nice safety feature! Holds four felting needles. The Ashford Felting Needle Punch comes with four needles for punch and one extra needle for detail work.

Student Needle Felting Punch, Ashford

Same great shape as above, this value priced felting needle punch lets you store your felting needles securely inside when not in use. Clear, strong acrylic. Nice contoured handle. Three felting needles included.

Felting Needle Punches from Feltcrafts

Light weight hand tooled aluminum felting needle punches from Feltcrafts. These tools screws apart for easy needle changing. Snug fit prevents movement. All purpose 38 gauge felting needles included. Six needle punch to left, twenty needle punch to right.

felting needle punch

Felting Needle Punches from Colonial

felting needle punch'alt= Nicely contoured felting needle tools in two sizes.Includes 36 gauge felting needles. Comfortable contoured birch handle. Additional needles sold seperatly.

NEW! Ashford Felting Set 1

14 oz of carded Corriedale Sliver in 12 colors: moss, navy, marigold, fir, eggplant, pumpkin, teal, lilac haze, nutmeg, sky blue, rose & berry. Click on image to enlarge.

NEW! Ashford Felting Set 2

14 oz of carded Corriedale Sliver in 12 colors: periwinkle, black, copper, camel, lima bean, chocolate, blue, green, magenta, orange, purple. Click on image to enlarge.

NEW! Ashford Felting Set 3

14 oz of carded Corriedale Sliver in 12 colors: turquoise, yellow, red, candy, indigo, lagoon, lime, lavender, pansy, raspberry, tangerine. Click on image to enlarge.

NEW! Ashford Felting Set 4

14 oz of carded Corriedale Sliver in 12 colors: Chilli Pepper, Cherub, Ice, Mint, Cupcake, Sweet Pea, Honey, Butterscotch, Toffee, Black, natural White. Click on image to enlarge.

Felting Needle Replacement Packs

36 gauge triangular point coarse needles / 4 pack, for coarse wools and deep penetration

38 gauge triangular point all purpose needle / 4 pack, for all purpose

40 gauge triangular point fine needle / 4 pack, for fine details fine wools

38 gauge star point needle / 3 pack, for fast felting and fine details. Star point needles will felt slightly faster than standard triangular point needles.

Assortment 4 pack 1-#36, 2-#38, 1-#40

Be safe: Felting needle are not toys and do not belong

in the hands of children.

Fibers for felting

Patterns to Knit and Felt

Felting with Felting Needles

Felting needles will enable you to create felt without the use of water or detergent. I allows you to felt or “sculpt” your work, add fine details and let your imagination run free. It is the prefect way to explore your fiber fantasies and create, create, create!

How do Felting Needles work?

These little needles have been used for many years in the creation of commercial felt and are now being discovered by individual felters. A felting needle has small “barbs” or “burrs” on the shaft which, when it penetrates the wool catches the scales of the wool thus felting it. This “up and down” or “punch” motion creates friction and thus felts the wool.

What can I felt with a Felting Needle?

What can you not? Start out with a small project such as a coaster, a soap cover or a small critter. Then let your imagination run wild. You can create fine lacy scarves, fantasy figurines, toys, vests…

Felting with Soap and Water

Woolen fibers that are submerged in hot soapy water can be felted by rubbing and kneading. The friction plus heats opens the scales of the wool, allowing them to bond with each other permanently.

How does Felting with Water and Soap work?

Felt is formed when sheep's' wool or animal fur is subjected to heat, moisture and pressure or agitation. Soap, or an alkaline environment, helps the felting process. Heat and moisture cause the outer scales along the fiber to open, and the soap allows the fibers to slide easily over one another thereby causing them to become entangled, thus producing felt.

What Fiber do I need?

As a rule of thumb you will experience that a finer wool will felt faster, meaning that a merino will felt a lot faster than a Romney for example. So…does that mean I always want to use the finest fiber I can? No, not necessarily, a coarser fiber, even though it may take longer to felt has it’s advantages: the created felt will be thicker and will be able to withstand wear better, which may be of advantage of items that are being used a lot (slipper soles, coasters etc) So, why don’t I just use real coarse fiber then for everything? Well, you could, but no one will love a scratch coarse scarf no matter how much love you put into its creation.

So…the bottom line is: Your fiber choice depends on your project and may vary. Just make sure you do not purchase super wash fibers or else you will be tying to make felt for the longest time J

Felt in Past and Present

The oldest archaeological finds containing evidence of the use of felt are in Turkey . Wall paintings that date from 6500 to 3000 B.C. have been found which have the motif of felt applique. At Pazyryk in Southern Siberia archeological evidence of felt was found inside a frozen tomb of a nomadic tribal chief that dates from the fifth century B.C. The evidence from this find shows a highly developed technology for wool felting. (These felts are in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Some pieces can be seen on the museums web site, www.hermitagemuseum.org The Romans and Greeks knew of felt. Roman soldiers were equipped with felt breastplates (for protection from arrows), tunics, boots and socks. The earliest felt found in Scandinavia dates back to the Iron Age. Felt wool sheets believed to be from about 500 A.D. were found covering a body in a tomb in Hordaland , Norway .

Today felt is still in use in many parts of the world especially in areas with harsh climates. In Mongolia , nomads live in felt tents called yurts or gers. In Turkey , rugs, hats and other items are made of felt. In South Central Asia nomadic tribes use felt as tent coverings, rugs and blankets. Shepherds use felt cloaks (kepenek) and hats to protect them from the harsh climate. In Scandinavia and Russia , felt wool boots are produced and widely used. More recently there has been a revival in the interest in felt making especially in Great Britain and Scandinavia and also in the United States with contemporary felt making design and techniques becoming more widespread.

Felting Needles
come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They are used primarily in industrial machines that hold thousands of needles in large flat plates to create non-woven fabrics. But fiber artists use them for 2- and 3-D work, either singly or in a hand held apparatus that may hold several needles.

All felting needles have a basic shape. They have a long shank with a narrow shaft that has a very sharp tip. The shaft may be triangular, star shaped or conical. The thin shaft is barbed. A barb is an indentation, and it is this feature that catches the wool and enables you to felt. The number of barbs, the location, and the depth varies between needles. The smaller barb depth will push less wool and vice versa. Let’s look at these features and how they affect needle felting.

A thin shaft of 38 or 40 gauge, that is either star shaped or triangular will leave the least visible hole in the finished piece. On most needles fiber artists are using today, the barbs start 3/8” (9.5mm) from the tip. I suggest using a needle with a barb starting only 3.2mm from the tip. This needle does not have to penetrate very deeply to work effectively. This is especially good for fine details such as making fingers, toes, and eyes and lips on figurative sculptures, or adding finishing details to two dimensional work. Very little surface deformation occurs as the needle does not have to go deep to push wool.

A shaft that has barbs starting at 3.2mm from the tip and with barb depths progressively deeper along the shaft from the tip will allow for very fine and shallow surface work, but also deep sculpting as the needle is pushed deeper into the wool. For instance, when covering a sculpted base with an outer fiber, the needle only needs to penetrate to the depth of the first barb to connect the two surfaces and harden the top surface. Further contouring is done only when desired by pushing the needle deeper to grab more wool.

There are four needle styles. They are:
1) 36 gauge triangle blade with barbs of equal depth starting 3/8” from tip for rough work, deep penetration, or coarse wools.
2) 38 gauge triangle blade with barbs of varied depths starting 3.2mm from tip for deep or fine work – a good general purpose needle.
3) 38 gauge star blade with barbs of varied depth starting 3.2mm from tip for fast felting and deep or fine work – a bit faster than the 38 gauge triangle.
4) 40 gauge triangle blade with barbs of varied depths starting 3.2mm from tip for fine detail work and fine wools.
Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are multi-purpose needles.
Numbers 3 and 4 can be used to repair nuno felt.