Eyes are the last thing you add and the first thing anyone looks at. The three types, how to sink them so they belong in the face, and the highlight that brings them alive.
5 min read Intermediate
Halfway between merino and a carpet fleece, and better than either at most felting jobs. What corriedale is, how it behaves, and when merino is still the right answer.
5 min read Beginner
The cheap coarse wool that fills the inside of every needle felted sculpture. Why using merino for a core wastes both money and time, and what to buy instead.
4 min read Beginner
Wool felt, craft felt and needle felted sculpture behave completely differently in water. How to wash each without destroying it.
4 min read Beginner
Soap does two jobs in wet felting — it lubricates and it raises the pH so the scales open. Which soaps do both, and why washing-up liquid is a compromise.
4 min read Beginner
Felting books split into three kinds — technique manuals, project collections and artist monographs. Most people buy the second kind first and wish they had bought the first.
3 min read
Fifteen felt hat names, what distinguishes each one, and which of them turn up as crossword answers — because half the questions about hat names come from a grid.
3 min read
Everything sold as felt by the metre came off one of three machines. A needle loom entangles the web, a hardening plate shrinks it, and a calender presses it to thickness.
4 min read
Felt is the easiest fabric an embroidery machine will ever meet — no fraying, no grain, and it is its own stabiliser. Almost. The two places it goes wrong are density and hooping.
4 min read
A fedora, a trilby and a homburg are three different hats, and the difference is measurable in centimetres of brim. What each shape does for a face, and how to size one properly.
3 min read
Charcoal reads as neutral, brown reads as warm, and black reads as formal whether you meant it to or not. How felt takes dye, and which shades survive sunlight.
3 min read
Wool smoulders, smells of burnt hair and crushes to ash. Polyester melts into a hard bead. Thirty seconds and one loose fibre tells you what you actually bought.
3 min read
Sculpt wool into animals, figures and decorations with barbed needles. Start with the basics, then work up to armatures, faces and fine detail.
Warm water, soap and friction turn loose fibre into solid fabric. Learn layouts, shrinkage and resists for scarves, soaps, vessels and flat felt.
Felt merino through open-weave fabric to create light, drapey textiles. Fabric choice, fibre weight and migration, explained clearly.
Complete makes with photos at every stage — animals, flowers, ornaments and home decorations, sorted by how much experience they need.
Printable templates, measurements and shaping guides you can follow exactly, or adapt once you know what the shapes are doing.
The core techniques, one skill at a time — each written as a sequence you can follow at the table with wool in your hands.
Fixes for the things that go wrong: fuzzy surfaces, broken needles, wool that will not felt, and shapes that refuse to hold.
The knitting side of working with wool — leaf patterns, casting on, needle sizes and knitting faster — including the pieces that go on to be felted.
Why leaves fall when they do, what a cobweb actually is, and the seasonal makes that follow from both.
What to do with the pumpkin once it is carved — cooking from fresh, including the parts most people throw away.
