Journal · 2024-03-04
Needle Felting Explained: Caring for Your Felties
I’ve been creating and collecting needle felted creations for nearly 20 years. I’d say I have a pretty extensive collection and I’ll give you my best advice for caring for your felties.
I have to laugh when I get asked how to care for needle felties. If you have seen videos of my dolls in action as they roll through the dirt and fly through the air you may question if I might NOT be the person to speak on this topic.
X-treme Felt Alive Motor Sports with Li’l Conan & Li’l Trump c. 2011 filmed in O’Brien, Oregon
Wool is very resilient to dirt and my rough treatment doesn’t bother my dolls much. After I pick off the twigs and leaves and shake them off good, they are happy again on display around my home and studio.
Caring for your felties all depends on you. Rather than a ‘Felt Alive’ soft style of needle felting, many amazing needle felters create wool sculptures more like statues or clay sculptures that aren’t meant to be handled. I’d suggest keeping those behind glass.
But if you are learning how to Felt Alive through my videos, you are sure to have creations that beg you to pick them up, show them off and even take them with you when you go out on adventures. Learning to care for your felties will help them get back home in A-1 condition.
Caring for Your Felties
Looking sharp on display
There are just a few basic steps to caring for your felties while on display to keep your creations looking spiffy.
Keep them out of direct sunlight to keep the colors from fading. Be aware that time will fade wool as well. I have dolls with hair made with natural undyed brown curls that are going gray with age. Can you say Felt Alive?
It’s important to pick up your creations and rearrange them often – Of course you’ll be showing them off to friends and family (my dolls love that!)
While on display, it’s inevitable they’ll collect dust. I take my dolls outside and shake them like I would shake out a feather duster. Picking up your creations often also helps keep cobwebs off and wool-lovin’ pests from getting too cozy.
Maintaining Your Felties
If your creations get handled a lot, the wool will get fuzzy and might even pill up like a sweater.
This is a scene after a local art event. If I had taken the time to bag each doll individually for travel, they wouldn’t need as much maintenance before the next event.
You can do needle felting maintenance anytime. Trim away the little pills and loose fibers and do a little surface felting to make them look good as new again. And of course, they can get a hairstyling and maybe even a mustache trim.
I’ve had well-loved custom dolls returned to me for maintenance. (what a joy that is to have a reunion and a spiff-up session)
Hair Maintenance
The hair on my creations seems to be the most challenging part of keeping them looking sharp over the years. I use Merino Roving quite a bit for hair. I needle felt it into the head, leaving the ends hanging loose. With time and handling, it wants to felt and turn into a mat.
I periodically and very carefully separate the strands with a strong sewing needle but more often, I just let the wool do its thing.
Caring for Your Felties in Storage
If you plan to store your felties away, wrap them loosely in tissue paper and seal them in a bag or box in a dark, dry place.
Without tissue, I have seen the wool sweat a bit causing the hair on my doll to felt.
If you’re concerned about wool moths or other pests that like protein fiber (knock on wool,) you can put peppermint or lavender sachets with your felties when storing them. This helps to keep pests away, but it’s not a guaranteed prevention method.
I think storing your felties in a cedar chest would be ideal, but whatever you do, it’s important to check them over regularly for signs of any tiny wool eating monsters. I read a great article about felting and pests over at Star Magnolias. It’s worth the long read.
Toys for Tots… or perhaps not
Felties and Children
If you are excited to make needle felted toys for kids there are definitely things to consider when it comes to caring for your felties. So much so that you might want consider another method of felting for making toys for kids.
Because of the whimsy and charm, it’s easy to assume they make great toys.
In my opinion, needle felted sculptures aren’t really a good fit. The hair can be pulled out and the outer layers and attached parts pulled off.
My little nephew discovered one of my needle felted baby dolls when I wasn’t looking and quickly tore the clothes and diapers off. I found her floating naked, face down in the dog water bucket. Tragic scene but honestly, it made me laugh when my nephew brightly announced she was swimming.
Funny thing was that I after I shook the water off and it dried out, the doll was naked, but just fine. She was smiling bright as ever.
He was so in love with Baby Olivia that I just let him play with her with during the week he was visiting.
They are tough if you felt them strong. But, still, I don’t recommend felties as toys. I had to definitely do some post nephew-visit repairs to get her back in shape.
If you do want to felt something for kids, I recommend really dense felting. Avoid creations that require attaching parts together to keep it as solid as possible. And even so, I would only recommend Supervised Play!
Wet felted creations tend to be much, much stronger. Learning how to wet felt is really fun and a hand puppet like this is nearly indestructible.
Caring for Your Felties: The Perils of Cats and Dogs
The worst danger of all for your felties is your pets. I believe that wool retains some barnyard scent that cats and dogs find irresistable. So, so many stories have been shared by my students of their pets shredding their felties before they were even finished.
Cats can really do some shredding in short order, but dogs… they are rascals about it. In fact, the VERY first doll I completed (took me ages to make) was stolen off my porch rail by a neighbor dog, never to be seen again.
The doll was pure white with white hair. We had new-fallen snow and I took her out to take pictures. I posed her on the porch rail and turned around for a moment and she was gone.
I followed the trail of the neighbor dog through the snow but sadly, couldn’t track it down and never got a picture. Crushed about the loss but so excited about needle felting that I immediately set out to make a duplicate. She’s not exactly the same but I do love her. The moral of the story is to keep your felties away from pets.
Speaking of pets…
Pets can also get into your fiber stash.
My sweet Bailey cannot resist a basket full of wool. Stinker.
But to keep my girls happy and give them a really fun toy to play with, I collect wool scraps and felt them into wool balls (dryer balls) in my washing machine. Violet and Bailey Love them!
Bailey with her wool ball, keeps her out of my stash.
In conclusion, caring for your felties can be nearly as fun as creating them!
