Felted Sky Kits: What Is in One, and What to Do When It Runs Out

Felted Sky comes up constantly in searches for needle felting kits, and the results are almost all shops rather than explanations. This page is the explanation: who they are, what is actually in the box, and — the part no shop listing covers — what to do on the evening you finish the project and want to make another one.

We are not connected to the company in any way, sell nothing, and have not been sent anything. Everything factual below is what Felted Sky and its stockists publish; the advice is ours.

Who they are

Felted Sky is a family-run American business founded by Elizabeth Whitton, a self-taught needle felter who came to the craft in 2011. She started selling wool on Etsy in 2012 and launched Felted Sky there in late 2013; Joshua Barfelz joined in 2017, and by 2019 the business had grown to a team of around fourteen.

The line is sold direct, on Etsy and Amazon, through Michaels' maker marketplace, and — by the company's own count — in more than a hundred shops across the US and Canada. Yarn retailers carry it too, which is why the brand turns up next to yarn rather than next to craft-store felt.

What is in a Sculpting with Wool kit

The main range is called Sculpting with Wool, and the company lists the standard contents as:

• A beginner's guide to needle felting, illustrated for every step.
• A link to video instructions for that specific project.
• Two colour-coded felting needles in a paper tube.
• Two types of felting wool — in practice a core fibre and a surface fibre.
• A wool mat to work on.

Then the project-specific parts, which vary a lot. The Fall Leaves & Acorns kit adds a paper leaf pattern, thick handmade felt in five colours, roving and real acorn tops. The Christmas Ornaments kit adds four part-felted balls, string, a doll-sized sewing needle and four felted ornament caps. Bunny Friends, Chick Friends, Easter Eggs, Gnomes and Evergreen Trees each carry their own extras.

The one thing to check before ordering

Not every kit in the range includes a work mat — the stockists say so explicitly, and it is easy to miss. The mat is not an accessory. Without a dense surface underneath, the needle goes through the wool and into the table, which is precisely how needles bend and then snap.

So before you order, look for the mat in the contents list. If it is not there, and you do not already own one, add one — or improvise, because the options are mostly household objects anyway. Felting mat alternatives covers what works and what shreds.

Why colour-coded needles are a genuinely good idea

Felting needles carry a gauge number that runs backwards — the higher the number, the finer the needle — and they look identical across gauges once they are out of the packet. Beginners routinely finish a piece with the wrong one and wonder why the surface is pitted.

Colour-coding removes that failure entirely for the length of the kit. It is worth understanding what the colours stand for before the kit runs out and you are buying plain steel ones: felting needles explained covers gauges and blade shapes, and how to stop breaking felting needles covers the handling that makes them last.

What to do when the wool runs out

This is the real question, and it is the same for every brand of kit. The needles and the mat will outlast dozens of projects. The wool is weighed out for exactly one object, so a second attempt means buying fibre — and fibre by weight costs a fraction of fibre in a box.

Two purchases cover almost everything:

• Core wool, undyed and coarse, for the inside of every sculpture. Cheap, fast to felt, and the thing kits are always short of — see core wool.
• One or two surface colours by weight rather than by sampler. Wool roving for felting covers the forms it comes in and how much a hand-sized animal actually consumes.

If you would rather compare kits properly before buying another, felting kits sorts out the four different products sold under that word, and felting needle kits goes through the tool side piece by piece.

Making the same projects without a kit

Every theme in the Felted Sky range is a standard needle felting subject, and each one is perfectly makeable from loose wool once you have seen it done once. If a particular kit appeals but you already have needles and a mat, the method is what you want rather than the box:

• Bunny and chick kits — the two classic first animals. Needle felted bunny and needle felted chick take them from a core ball.
• Easter eggs — a shape with no anatomy to get wrong, which is why kits love it. See needle felted Easter eggs.
• Gnomes — a cone, a beard and a hat, and the most forgiving figure there is: felted gnome.
• Christmas ornaments — the part-felted balls in the kit are a shortcut you can make yourself; felted Christmas ornaments and how to make felt balls cover both halves.

For the order to learn things in, needle felted animals for beginners ranks the whole library by which technique each project teaches.

If the kit is a present for a child

Beginner kits are bought as gifts more often than for the buyer, and the needles do not become blunt because the box is cheerful. A felting needle is barbed steel that catches on the way out as well as the way in. Ten and up with someone at the table is a realistic floor; the reasoning is in is needle felting dangerous.

For a younger child, the same wool works wet — warm water, soap and hands, nothing sharp at all. How to felt without a felting needle covers the alternatives.

Getting a better result out of whichever kit you buy

Kits fail for the same handful of reasons, none of which are the kit's fault:

• Stopping too early. The shape appears in the first quarter of the time; the remaining three quarters is firming it up, with almost nothing visible to show for it. That stretch is where beginners stop and why pieces stay squashy.
• Working the surface colour before the core is firm. Colour laid onto soft wool sinks in and goes muddy.
• Pushing through to the mat. Faster in theory; snapped needles in practice.

All of them, and the two others that catch people, are in needle felting mistakes. If you have never felted at all, read needle felting for beginners first — it takes about ten minutes and it will make the kit's instruction sheet make sense.

The short version

A well-made beginner kit with a sensible idea in it — colour-coded needles — from a small company that has been doing this since 2013. Check whether your chosen kit includes the mat, expect the wool to cover exactly one project, and buy core wool separately the moment you decide you want a second. After that, felting supplies for beginners is the list that replaces the box.