How to needle felt - make a strawberry charm or pendant

The charm of needle-felting is that it can be used to make 3D shapes, turning simple fibre into soft and charming sculptures. Lets try using both 3D and flat needle-felting techniques to make this sweet little strawberry charm

You will need:

• Felting wool, red and green
• a felting needle
• foam mat
• glass seed beads in brown or gold
• needle and thread fine enough to go through your beads
• wire,  pin-type jewellery finding or metal loop

Start by taking enough red wool fibre to fill the palm of your hand. Wrap it loosely into a ball, and give it a few pokes with the needle to hold it together. It’s important that you always pull the needle out the way it went in, as otherwise you can easily snap your needle. The barbs on the needle will catch some fibres and push them down amongst the fibres below, making felt. Be careful not to poke your fingers – it’s very easily done and it hurts – the barbs not only damage your skin worse than a plain needle would, but can in extreme cases work fibre into the wound – ouch! Work into the mat whenever possible.

Now you can begin to shape the bottom of the strawberry – hold the ball at an angle and work into the middle of it, turning as required to make a cone shape. You’ll be surprised at how quickly it takes shape, and how easy it is to use your fingers, the mat, and the needle to work the fibre into the shape you want. Once you’re happy with the bottom half, work into the top, shaping a slightly flattened dome. Keep going until you have a fairly firm piece and you’re satisfied with the shape.

Next, we’ll make the calyx – the technique we’ll be using can be used to make any flat felt shape. I mostly use it to make flower petals.

Pull out some fibres from your green wool, and lay them on the mat. Pull out a second lot of fibres and lay them over the first, at a 90 degree angle. Finish with a third layer, in the same direction as the first.

Working straight into the mat, make an outline of the shape you want – in this case, a 5-pointed star. If you like, you can use a paper template – cut out your shape, lay it on top of your fibre, and work round the edge.

Now begin to fold the fibre outside your outline in, using the needle to work it into the middle of your star. Your shape may be bigger than you want – don’t worry, keep working the edges in, turning the piece over now and again. You’ll notice that some of the fibres have been pushed right into the mat, so be gentle when you turn your work over.

To fix your finished calyx to the top of the berry, there is no need to sew – push the felting needle through both pieces until they are securely joined. The needle takes fibres from the top piece and works them into the bottom piece, making a secure join without sewing.

Now lets finish off with some bead ‘seeds’. Thread a sewing needle, and push it right through your berry to hide the loose end of the thread. Make a couple of small stitches to secure it, then pick up a bead and push your needle back in where the thread comes out, and through the berry, exiting where you want your next bead. Again, pick up a bead, insert the needle where the thread came out of the berry, and push right through to where you want your next bead. When you’re done, make a couple of stitches to secure, then take the thread right through the berry, pull tight, and cut off close – the loose end will be hidden inside.

Finish by either sewing a small metal loop to the top, or by pushing a bead finding or piece of wire up through the whole strawberry, bottom to top, and bend into a loop at the top. If you’re using wire, you can wind the loose end round below the loop for a neat finish.

Now you know how to make simple 3D and flat shapes, you can use these techniques to make felt models of almost anything!

You may also like:

1. How to make felt: wet-felting and needle felting
2. Make a felted flower bag 2 – needle-felt roses and leaves
3. How to needle felt 3D shapes together – little matryoshka doll