Needle Felting a Little Lamb

*If you’re new to felting or want extra safety, you can purchase rubber thimbles for your fingers from a local wool/knitting store.

Find a well lit area of your home, with a sturdy and flat space. I use my foam block to store the needles in when not using, so they don’t roll around or accidentally poke you.

Unscrew the handle from the needle holder, and insert 3 needles carefully. Replace handle by screwing on.

Start by taking your pipe cleaner and folding it in half once, and then in half again. Twist the pipe cleaner to make a sturdy structure for the inner part of your lamb’s legs. Repeat with the second pipe cleaner. You will have two 3” twisted pipe cleaners.

Grab a piece of fairy wool, in white, about the length of your hand and the width of 2 fingers, and begin wrapping it around one of the pipe cleaners. You’ll want to make sure the pipe cleaner is completely covered in wool. Wrap tightly.

Once wrapped, grab your foam block and single felting needle and begin to slowly poke the wool all the way through, into the foam block. Felt the end bit of wool first, to help it secure to itself. Then work your way around, making sure to get the ends which will form the bottoms of the feet. Repeat this many, many times until your entire pipe cleaner has an even, firm wool coating surrounding it. It will take time, 5 to 10 minutes depending on how slow you go. Slow is ok!

Repeat steps 5 and 6 for the second pipe cleaner. You now have your lamb’s legs!

Take another piece of fairy wool in the same colour, roughly the size of an apple when wound up in a ball. This will be your lamb’s body. Use your needle holder containing the 3 needles to felt, again through the wool and into the foam block, to create a round-ended cylinder (or a potato!). You are aiming for a fairly firm cylinder.

Grabbing another piece of white wool, you’ll want to form the head. This piece should be slightly smaller than a golf ball. Use the single needle to felt until firm.

Ears are up next! Use your foam block, two small pieces of white fairy wool, and your single needle to felt the shape of the ears. I like to leave a bit of extra wool at the base of the ears to help attach it to the head in the next coming steps. Felt the inside of the needle to create the inner ear part, giving a more realistic look to them. *If you have light pink fairy wool, feel free to take the tiniest amount and felt it into the inner ears.*

Lastly, you’ll want another small piece of white wool to make the tail. Using the single needle and foam block, form a small tail, about the size of a tic tac. It’s helpful here to leave a bit of loose, extra wool at the base like we did for the ears, to help attach it to the body.

Assembly time! Attach all pieces to the body, and the ears to the head, taking your time, as this part requires precision and odd placement of your hands to hold the pieces while attaching.

Once the legs, head, ears, and tail are attached you can grab 3 small balls and a thin string of your darkest colour, these will make the eyes, nose and mouth. The small balls will be rolled between your finger until they are the size of a peppercorn. The thin string will only need to be 3 inches or so in length.

Felt the eyes onto the head carefully using the single needle, as well as the nose. Take the thin string of wool, and begin to attach the mouth slightly below the nose. You’ll start at one end of the string, on the far side of the mouth, felting into the head, and then fold the string back over onto itself to thicken up the mouth line.

Next is my favourite part - adding the fluffy wool to the body! Choose whatever colour you’d like your lamb’s wool to be. Sherman, this little lambs predecessor, has salt and pepper wool, whereas this little fella will have deep coffee-brown wool. You’ll get to play a little here, and use your preference for how much or little ‘wool’ you’d like to add to the body. Begin wrapping the body (avoiding the head, tail and legs) with your fairy wool. You can leave it super fluffy at this point and then felt it down sporadically to give it a cloud-like look or you can apply the wool thinly and felt down more intensely to have a less ‘grown out’ appearance for your lamb.

Finish up by checking that all of the torso is covered in your darker colour, make sure all body parts are securely attached and then guess what? You’re done!

Blog Post and Photos by Courtney Audette

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