How to needle felt 3D shapes together – little matryoshka doll

A little while ago, we looked at how to needle-felt 3D and flat shapes. Today, I’d like to show you how to join 3D shapes together in needle felting, and how to make this little matryoshka doll.

Joining shapes together is not very difficult, and when you can combine different basic shapes you can make pretty much any model in needle felt!

For this project you’ll need:

• Wool fibre in various colours – a base colour for the face and body, such as cream or pale peach/brown, different colours for the dress and shawl, a little bit of brown, black, yellow or grey for the hair, plus a very tiny bit of red and black for the features.
• felting needle
• felting mat

Begin by using this tutorial on felting basic 3D shapes to make a sphere and an egg shape, flattened at the bottom. Starting from a lightly rolled ball of fibre about the size of your hand, work it down into shape with short stabs of the needle, working over any bits that stick up, turning often to work into shape. As always, work down into the mat where possible, mind your fingers, and always pull the needle out the same way it went in to avoid it breaking.

Once you have your two base pieces, you can join them together as follows. Hold the two pieces together where you want the join to be. If you like, you can use a couple of runs of the needle to hold them lightly in place. Take a wisp of loose fibre, and wrap it around the join. Holding the pieces toether, use your felting needle to work the loose fibre into both pieces, working over the join until the loose fibre is worked in completely and you have a nice firm join. The fibre you wrapped around should be pretty much invisible.

Of course, you could just felt the pieces together without adding the extra bit of wool fibre, but this tends to alter the shapes somewhat.

Now you have the base of your doll completed, you can add a dress. Wrap a piece of coloured fibre round the doll body, and felt it into place.

Why add the dress afterward? Why not just make the body out of the coloured fibre? If you plan to have the join between the head and body completely covered by the doll’s shawl, you can of course make the body base of coloured fibre, but if any part of the join will be visible, because we join by working an extra piece of fibre over the join, it will look neater if both pieces and the joining fibre are all the same colour.

Next, we’ll add facial features and hair. Make the features by taking a very small wisp of fibre and rolling it into a small ball. Felt into place, using the tip of the needle to nudge the fibres into position so you end up with well-defined eyes and mouth.

Next, take a wisp of fibre for the hair. Twist it in the centre, and felt the twisted part firmly to the centre of the doll’s head. Smooth the loose ends round the head and felt very lightly into place, so that it holds in position, but still looks like hair.

Finally, we’ll make a shawl. Lay out three or four layers of fibre on your mat, each layer going in a different direction. Mark a triangular outline by working round with your needle, then fold the fibres in along the outline and felt into place. Work over the shawl just enough for it to all hold together, then lift it from the mat. First felt along the edge on the dolls head, then bring the corners round under the chin and felt into place. Finally felt the back corner down, and then work all over the shawl until it is smooth.

Finished!

You may also like:

1. How to needle felt – make a strawberry charm or pendant
2. Needle-felted Valentine heart
3. How to make a needle-felted lily (part 2)