Needle Felted Penguin Charm

Penguin Charm - Needle Felting Basics

Posted by Made by Me! Arts&Crafts

About

In this tutorial you can learn and apply the basic techniques of needle felting. You can basically 'build' and 'stick' all the pieces of your sculpture just with a felting needle. After going through this tutorial once, you will be able to easily make other little sculptures.
Roving wool it's such a flexible and interesting material. You can use it to make simple decorations or hiper-realistic sculptures. The working process itself is kind of meditative and relaxing. Enjoy!

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You Will Need (6 things)

Triangular Felting Needle medium size
Felting Mat (or cleaning sponge)
3 g White Wool Roving for the body
1 g Orange Wool Roving for the beak and the feet
2 g Black Wool Roving for the "jacket", the eyes and the flippers
Charm Loop

Steps (19 steps, 45 minutes)

1

Gather the tools and materials: Felting needles, felting mat (or a cleaning sponge), charm loop and the roving wool (possibly Corriedale, this carded wool roving it's easier to felt because of their texture). To split the wool in parts, don't pull it from close the splitting point, but place your hands bit further apart and gently pull.
2

Roll the white wool following the direction of the fibers. Now that you have it rolled up in an egg-ish shape, place it on the mat and start poking it. (The tiny hooks on the needle will tangle the wool more and more with each 'in & out' movement.)
Hold the wool on one side, and focus poking on the other side, to keep your fingers safe. Keep poking evenly up&down, right&left and front&back switching often side for an homogenous shape. Poking deep in the beginning will entangle the fibers faster. Poking lightly at the end will result in a smoother look.
3

Split and tears the fibers up, to have 5 parts, about the size shown in the picture. The smaller orange part will be used for the beak, the other 2 bigger parts for the feet. The big black stripe will be rolled around the body, and the last little stripe will be placed above the eyes.
4

Roll the orange parts, and fold the little black stripe in a 'V' shape.
5

Holding the wool with the tip of your fingers, poke for few minutes all the orange pieces, just enough they hold a round shape. Define the edges by poking diagonally.
The process of needle felting is not about speed, especially for beginners, always watch what you are doing!
6

Now, leaving only the front white, cover the rest of the body with the big black stripe, and holding it as in the picture, poke all around till it's all attached. If you still see some white under the black, just use a little more black wool and patch it up.
7

To make the heart shape lines around the eyes area, start by 'blocking' the 'V' shaped black stripe, in the center of the upper part of the body.
8

Then poke it, little by little, following a curved imaginary line.
Felting needles are very sharp but very delicate too. To avoid breaking it, always come back from the same direction as you poke.
9

Do the same on the other side and, if necessary, patch up the white spot left on the top of the head.
10

Time to place the beak. Poke all around the little orange ball till it's firmly attached. Do not poke too much on top of it or it will become flat.
11

For the tiny eye just tear up few black fibers.
12

Roll them in between your fingers.
13

Fix the eyes in place with few pokings.
Attach the feet as you did with the beak.
And now you can decide to leave the little penguin with his flippers in 'his pockets' and jump to step 17...
14

...or you can proceed and add the 2 flippers.
Tear up 2 small stripes of black wool, the same amount you did for the feet.
15

Roll and poke them on the mat for few minutes each. Then stick it to the side of the body.
16

Last, we pass through the charm loop some black wool. As in the picture.
17

Hold it in place on the top of the head.
18

And poke it there and along the back till it feels strong enough.
19

Congratulations! You made It. Here you have your first little needle felted sculpture.