Little Blue tutorial

I thought I would add a bit more detail to my first attempt at a tutorial (below). Forgive the awful piccies, it was quite late evening and I don't have clever lighting!

The equipment you need for needle felting is not really very exclusive. You must have the proper needles and after that everything else is down to your imagination. I was given needles and the brush thing and bought some roving from a well known hobby store because that's the first place I saw some in the flesh.

The needle pen carries three needles. The bristles on the brush are nylon. I have seen some dog/cat grooming brushes that could easily be used instead. This one is the bigger of the two commercialy available ones I have seen. The cookie cutter is just one possibility for templates for flat felting. Since I started thinking about this I have wandered round the house looking..... loads of things could be used!

Cardboard cut outs are next on my list. I will be re-using cardboards boxes to make some new templates. I will draw or glue shapes on and then cut around them - another tutue in the making! The only other material you need is the wool roving or tops. I think you can get synthetic versions too, but I haven't tried any yet.

Place your template on the brush and some roving into the shape and then simply start to stab!

Don't stab too deeply as this means you push the roving further down into the bristles of the brush. But don't worry if you don't get this bit right, as it just means you have more tidying to do in the next stage.

When you have stabbed one side and  are happy with the results, take off the template - looks sad doesn't it? Peel off the shape, turn it over and pop it back into the template and start stabbing again!

Repeat the turn until you are happy. I also stabbed into the edges to tighten them up. Take the shape out of the template and carefully stab into the edge. In the picture on the left you can see the left hand side is tighter than the right. I then removed two of the needles from the needle pen and added some detail. A darker blue for the centre of the flower and some yellow for two stamens. I pulled out an extremely small amount of yellow roving, twisted it and then used the single needle to stab it into the flower shape. 

I have read that you can give flat work a neater finish by spritzing with water and then ironing it. I might try that with the next make!