Needle Felting Doll Clothes - Felt Alive Needle Felted Doll Making Tips

Needle Felting Doll Clothes, when a Fig (oak) leaf isn’t appropriate…

Felt Alive’s Guide to Needle Felting Doll Clothes

I’ll be the first to admit, my dolls LOVE being naked. They really do seem to enjoy their new little bodies. But in felt, as in life, sometimes we simply must get dressed.

It is easy to make needle felted clothing (watch a video) with clean edges for hems and even firm soles for shoes; needle felting it all right into place.

Clothing my dolls is very exciting, it seems like with each ‘outfit’ I create, I’m learning and developing new techniques.

the dude caricature needle felted doll by felt alive

No sewing is needed – ever!

The clothes hang loose and shoes look like they can be removed. But they are securely needle felted in place. Using quality wool helps me bring my ideas to life. Getting my dolls dressed is such a big part of developing their characters and making them literally ‘Felt Alive.’ I rely on wool that will behave exactly like I need it too.

Using wool that isn’t ideally suited to sculptural needle felting might leave my sharp-dressed men a little less sharp. And there would certainly be less of them. Needle felting with wool that felts up fast and neat with a felting needle leads me a little quicker to my ultimate delight in needle felting – falling in love with my new wool friends.

Wool Batting

Batting comes in sheets, rather than ropes (like roving or top) it’s is a great choice for making needle felted doll clothes using flat felting techniques. I typically start clothing out on the felting pad and felt the components flat making clean edges for hems, leaving loose fibers to needle felt right to the dolls.

Our Yellow 40t felting needle works like a dream with all of our batting. The Double point needles really do double the fun.

Wool Batting is a fun choice for needle felted doll clothes.
These Felt Alive Dolls are all dressed to the nines in with clothes needle felted from wool batting.

Needle felted accessories? Hal, The Tourist even has a camera made from wool batting!

And Mac, well, Mac is pretty happy with his kilt and sporran needle felted with wool batting. Merino Roving came in handy for creating the plaid pattern. His happy face shirt and boots are also made using batting!

Merino Prefelt!

Sheets of partially felted wool that I use often for clothing my dolls. It works great because it is, essentially, thin sheets of batting but a needle felting machine started the process for us!
If you are embellishing and need clean edges, cutting the merino batting gives a great result as you needle felting it in to your piece.

If I want a clean edge that hangs loose it’s a good idea to finish the edge by folding a hem under and felting it flat. I find if I ruffle the edges with a strong sewing needle, the edge felts in nicely.

Prefelt sheets are not fully felted, meaning there are still loose fibers that can be felted – needle felted right into projects. with no seams showing at all.

Li’l Saige’s shirt and shoes are made from Merino Prefelt.
His shorts are made with wool batting (and his hair is Merino roving.)

The details of his “FA” (Felt Alive) shoes were simple using tiny letters cut from prefelt and needled right into the shoes.

Li’l Jessica looks so cute in her jumper made with Merino Prefelt

Jim Timmie got dressed in my Needle Felted Dolls video workshop using prefelt for his shorts and his shoe.
He lost his other shoe so you could learn how to make bare feet and feet with shoes!
Because our prefelt is made of fine merino wool, I recommend using our fine and fast Blue 40 star felting needles. the Double or Quad Point blue needles work great for finishing up the work that the machine started without leaving big holes in this fine wool.

Small bits of prefelt can even be fluffed right up with your fingertips (or a sharp sewing needle) and you will find yourself with messy batting to use for eyes, teeth in shading. The white pre felt can be used in place of our Short-fibered white merino batting in all of my video workshops as long as you fluff it up first.

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