You might ask me the question: What have needle-felted animals got to do with dollhouses and miniatures, Lizzy?
Well, just about everything. Because if you haven't seen any tiny needle-felted animals before then you have missed out for sure!
Once in a while, on my Facebook group or in other places, people are showing off their breathtaking miniature dogs, mini cats, tiny birds, etc, and it amazes me every d**n time (pardon my English).
Today, I am going to teach you the technical basics of how to make needle-felted animals.
What Do You Need To Craft Needle Felted Animals?
Here's a list of the materials you need to craft needle-felt animals:
- Industrial type felting needles (a needle number eight goes faster depending on the surface), and a needle cape to safely store the needle.
- A base. There are many different types of bases that you can use, but a foam furniture foundation of about 5 cm is great.
You can go to a furniture store and ask to try out a piece of foam that suits you and that is consistent enough.
Some people also use fique bags filled with rice.
- This piece of foam is covered with Lenci cloth because otherwise, the foam would fall apart if you felt it.
- The wires: you can use any wire, but aluminum is fine. Make sure that you can manipulate it with your hands.
- Chisels, pliers , scissors for the finishing touch,
- little eyes and a thread to sew them
- a punch to make the holes for the eyes
- wool, Corriedale wool is the better choice
Preparation of needle-felted animals
Decide on which animal you will make and study their appearance.
You need to have some kind of plan on which little animal you will create. Let's for example look at a picture of a husky-dog, as it has lots of different colors.
But what's important to know is that when you choose a specific breed of dog, each one has its own characteristics.
Take a closer look at the bone structure and muscles as well of the animal of your choice, because that is different for each species.
Remember that creating an animal that has 4 legs isn't the same as making a human with 2 legs ;-).
Make sure to study closely their fur, ears, shoulder height, rib cage, the size of the body, etc.
You could choose to craft it very realistic (hyper-realistic), or make a caricature out of it, it is totally up to you!
By thoroughly studying the animal, you can find out what the basic structure and hardwires will need to look like before you start the actual felting (more below)
If you like to learn more about this part, then please take a look at the link below on the online course of Domestika.