Banner Sponsors

elle Oct 1, 2007

I made a tiny needlefelted doll over the weekend.  I made the head, body, and legs on Saturday, and they went quickly and pretty easily.  Yesterday, I spent about 4 hours trying to make little arms (about 3/8" long).  It was like I forgot everything from the day before.  I would felt until the pieces became pretty firm, then they got softer and starting falling apart!  I used a 36T and then a 38T.

I tried using several different sizes of the needles, thinking maybe my needle was too thick.  It didn't seem to help.  The arms were very small, thin parts.  Could that have had anything to do with it?  I finally got them made and attached, but it was quite frustrating.  I'm not sure what I did differently to make it work, except using smaller needles.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

I also bought a pack of 8 natural colors at a local quilting store that also has felting and needlepunch supplies.  When I opened it up to use one of the colors, I found it to be shorter, fuzzier strands with lots of vegetable matter.  There are also little "globs" of wool, so that it is not carded into the nice, straight, long strands that are in the roving I already have.  Do you know if this will felt OK?  I think I would have to pull out all the vegetable matter as I wouldn't want that sticking out of a face or body part.     I'm thinking of trying to return it to the store.

Grin and Grimace Oct 4, 2007

Hi Elle,

I'm not an expert, but if the size of your project is rather small such as the arms you mentioned, you may have over felted. Again, I'm not an expert, hopefully someone will weigh in soon.

makafelts Oct 4, 2007

I was thinking that this tyoe of problem had been addressed in here previously, but I can't find the thread right now.

Hugs &

elle Oct 4, 2007

Thanks Stacey and Charlotte.  It did feel like I might have overfelted the parts, though.  The arms are pretty tiny.