How To Needle Felt A Picture – Easy Tutorial!

I have had lots of requests to put together a quick guide to teach you how to needle felt a picture. It is easy to get you started and painting with wool is so much fun.

I am sharing my own needle felted pictures as inspiration and they are suitable for all abilities, including complete beginners. Allowing you to work at your own level and at your own pace. If this is your first time needle felting then please watch my beginner video tutorials to familiarise yourself with basic techniques:

HOW TO NEEDLE FELT

BASIC SHAPE VIDEO TUTORIAL

Shop Picture Needle Felting Pattern

Get Everything Ready

Preparation and planning is really important. I find using a photograph of a landscape, animal, woodland scene etc for reference/inspiration really helpful. It can be the roughest of guides or very specific to the photograph or image you have in mind. You may have a particular animal you want to incorporate into the picture which is also a great starting point; anything goes.

The Design

For this guide I am creating fields as the backdrop with a 2 D wooden gate, Herdwick Sheep and pebble wall in the foreground. It is called, ‘Watching Me, Watching Ewe.’ I know, cheese on toast right… but it was too good an opportunity not to. You should hear my pirate jokes. I save those for special occasions, usually workshops.  #sorrynotsorry to anyone who has been at the receiving end of them…

Let’s Get Started!

Choose Your Backing Fabric

1 – Using a piece of *pre-felt – or your chosen felting fabric – for the back of your picture take a marker or chalk to, very roughly, draw out your idea on to the pre-felt: ZERO DRAWING SKILLS REQUIRED. This way you can ensure that you can fit in all the elements you want to use.

* I always use pure Shetland but any 100% wool felt is OK. Size of the pre-felt I used for this picture is approx 20cm square. A 30cm square is included in the picture pack.

2 – I am making a *Herdwick picture with a landscape backdrop and stone wall to get lots of 2D elements in there. It’s quite a small picture; 20cm square to fit into some lovely shadow boxes I have. Also, starting with a smaller picture means there is less white space to fill which can be a little daunting and it takes less time.

Draw A Rough Outline – Optional

3 – Mark your colours and objects so you know where your wool and 2D elements are going to sit. Keep it as simple as possible and remember these are just your guide lines.

Gather Your Needle Felting Tools

4 – Time to get out your wool and needles. I am using a 36/38 needles (good all rounders) and a punch tool (7 needles) to speed up the process.

5 – I felted the landscape first but you can start wherever you want depending on your picture style. I will be felting on my 2D elements later and adding embellishment. Lay your colour on, or between the lines, you have drawn, and use your needle to gently felt into place. It doesn’t have to be firmly felted but should stay in position.

I have used a mix of coarse wool tops and some semi carded wool tops that I had a lot of.

6 – Continue to gently needle felt your selected colours until the back ground is full.

7 – If you are happy with the layout then go ahead and felt the whole background more firmly (but not too flat), peeling it off your mat at intervals so it doesn’t stick. If you are doing a lot of flat felting then I recommend a rice filled hessian mat, or a large foam felting pad, and a punch tool. Trust me, you will thank me later for cutting your felting time in half.

Don’t worry if you have covered up some of your lines; remember they were just a guide.

Try Blending Colours

You can also blend colours either by hand or using blending brushes (glorified dog brushes). For this picture I used a blend of Shetland blue top, light blue silk fibre and light grey Swaledale top for the sky.

Outlines Will Make Your Picture Pop

8 – I wanted a distinct line separating the fields and used very thin strips of dark brown Jacob wool top to achieve this. Felt the lines quite firmly into the pre-felt which will push it down and give a little more depth.

Time to create some 3D elements.

9 – Stone Wall

I have used lots of muted colours to create the pebbled wall appearance. Avoid all ‘flat’ colours by blending different colour wool by hand. A soft palette works really well for this style of picture e.g purple blended with white, or dark grey blended with white or light grey.

Pebble Technique

Make your pebble/stones by rolling your wool into a very rough ball shape (this is not the shape you will end up with but will create dimension) and felting all over with your needle. Keep the wool moving as it firms up and don’t try to make it even; have you ever seen even shapes on a dry stone wall… Make quite a few different shapes and sizes; mine are  approx 1.5cm to 2.5cm then place them on your picture in the walled area to see how many more you will actually need.

Attaching The Felt Pebbles

Once done stitch or glue them into position; I’m not a purist and whichever you choose is fine. Clearly, using glue is so much faster and a strong fabric glue will do just fine as long as you give it a little time to dry. Using glue also allows you to move your pebbles about before the glue dries; you will be ready for a cuppa at this stage anyway.

Making The Needle Felted Sheep

10 – Time to make the Herdwick sheep head (or whichever animal you have chosen).

Video Tutorial

Please follow the link to the video tutorial: How to needle felt a head shape  You will want to flatten the back of the head so it sits nicely on your picture. You can then needle felt your eyes or use beads (included in the picture pack).

Written Tutorial

11- Start with a small length of white wool (approx 2g) and roll into a rough oval shape felting (stabbing gently with your needle) and tucking in the ends as you go.  Gently felt until it holds its shape and turning as you felt. Continue to felt until you have achieved a rough egg/oval shape. Now flatten the back of the head by needle felting until it sits flat on the picture but don’t attach it yet; it’s ears are missing.

12 – Ears: For the ears take a pinch of white wool. Lay it on your pad and draw a rough circle with your felting needle and fold the wool around the line you have drawn, felting it into the centre. Turn over (to prevent from sticking) and repeat a few times, leaving one end loose (to attach to the head) and felt until flat, smooth and slightly firm. Repeat for other ear. Attach the loose end of each ear to the side of the head and felt or sew into position so it is peeping over the wall.

13 – Gently felt on very thin wisps (even thinner than that) onto the face to create the nose and mouth. The easiest way is to roll very thin wisps of wool between your fingers before felting to the face. Alternatively, you can sew on using black or dark grey thread.

14 – Add your gate by rolling and felting your brown wool into short lengths and overlapping for effect before gently felting into position. You may reposition a few times before you are happy with it.

15 – Add your wool for the body of your animal but don’t felt it flat and keep it quite loose as this will create dimension. I have used loose curly grey locks.

Foreground Details

16- Now add your foreground details. I have used greens and some locks for a grassy feel but be as creative as you wish. You could add flowers, butterflies, bees etc.

Finishing Touches

17 – Finishing touches make all the difference and as you can see I have used french knots (easy and absolutely no need to be perfect). YouTube French Knot Tutorial. Curly locks also add more interest and dimension.

Well done for getting this far. You now have the techniques and confidence to continue your needle felting journey. Keep scrolling for more needle felting picture inspiration.

More Picture Inspiration

I have done a few pictures which are so worth the time they take. Here are a few more ideas for inspiration.

‘Asleep Under The Cherry Tree’ A gift for my daughter.

Again, I have used French Knots as well as beads for interest and detail.

‘Midnight At The Northern Lights’ 

Midnight is the name of my hare in the picture and inspiration came from my dream of visiting the  Northern Lights.

Wet Felting

You can also use wet felted pictures as a base and then add  two dimensional effects using needle felting. Free motion embroidery works really well on wet felted backgrounds. Below is a very unfinished picture waiting for me to decide what to do next. I have needle felted onto Shetland pre-felt then wet felted the whole scene incorporating locks and silk fibres.

There are lots of YouTube videos showing wet felting techniques: Wet Felting Tutorial

Wool Ideas For Your Pictures

have a look below at the types of wool I have used for these needle felted pictures. Use whatever you have and use up all of your wool scraps while you’re at it. So there you have it. The possibilities are endless and I hope this guide has inspired you to try something new. Happy creating!