Needle Felted Bunny: An Easy Rabbit in Two Hours

Bunny felting is the usual second project in needle felting, and arguably a better first one than a ball. It is two shapes joined together, it needs no wire, and it is forgiving — a slightly lumpy rabbit still looks like a rabbit, which is not true of a cat or a dog.

What you need

• Core wool — about 12 g
• Surface colour: cream, grey, brown or white corriedale — 5 g
• Scraps of pink, black and white
• 38 and 40 gauge needles, foam pad
• Optional: 4 mm glass eyes

Step by step

1. Body. Roll core wool into a tight egg roughly 5 cm long. Needle all over until firm, keeping the wider end at the bottom. Flatten the base against the mat so it sits without rolling — a sitting rabbit's body is a pear, not a ball.
2. Haunches. Needle two shallow curved grooves down either side, from the middle of the back to the base, and add a small wisp of wool outside each groove to build the thigh. This one step turns an egg into a rabbit.
3. Head. A separate ball, about two-thirds the body's width. Firm it hard, then needle the front into a slightly flattened wedge — rabbits have a rounded face with a small blunt muzzle at the bottom.
4. Join. Leave loose fibre at the base of the head, press it onto the shoulders and needle those fibres in from all directions. Lay a thin veil over the join and felt it down until the neck disappears.
5. Ears. To needle felt rabbit ears, fold a small piece of wool into a long teardrop on the mat and needle it flat and firm, leaving loose fibre at the narrow end. Make both together so they match. Turn frequently so both faces are smooth, then trim the edges to shape and tidy the cut with a few strokes.
6. Attach the ears at the back of the top of the head, angled slightly backwards and outwards, with the loose base fibres needled deep into the skull. Pinch a shallow fold into the base of each so it cups forward.
7. Front paws. Two small sausages, attached at the chest and lying forward against the body.
8. Tail. A loose ball of white wool, needled just enough to hold together and attached at the back. Do not firm it — the point is that it looks fluffy.
9. Face. Two shallow dents for eye sockets, set wide on the sides of the head, not the front. Rabbits' eyes are almost on the sides. Add a tiny pink or brown Y-shaped nose and mouth with a 40 gauge needle.
10. Coat. Thin veils of the surface colour over the whole body, needled at a shallow angle, with white on the chest, belly and around the eyes.

Why a felted rabbit ends up with floppy ears

Floppy ears on a rabbit that was meant to have upright ones. The cause is always density: an ear needled until it holds together is not the same as an ear needled until it is stiff. Keep going until it feels like thin card, and check by holding it upright — if the tip bends under its own weight, it needs more work or more wool at the base.

If it still will not stand, needle a short length of florist's wire into the centre of the ear before finishing it.

Variations

• Lop rabbit. Make the ears longer, wider and deliberately soft, and attach them low on the sides of the head so they hang.
• Hare. Longer ears with black tips, longer legs, a leaner body, head held higher.
• Lying down. Flatten the body into a loaf, tuck the paws under, and lay the ears back along the spine.
• Baby bunny. Larger head relative to the body, shorter ears, rounder everything. Roughly 5 cm total.
• Easter bunny. White wool, a ribbon, and a basket or a felted egg — see needle felted Easter eggs.

Felted rabbits or cute bunnies: what changes?

Proportions, almost entirely. A cute bunny has a head nearly as wide as its body; a realistic rabbit's head is about a third of its body length when it sits. The same two-shape construction above makes either one. What you change is the size of the head, where the eyes sit and how long the ears are.

For rabbit needle felting from life, a 4 in (10 cm) sitting rabbit is a comfortable size. It takes about 30 to 40 g (1 to 1½ oz) of wool, and the eye and lip details are big enough to place with a 40 gauge needle. Use a photo of a real rabbit in profile and check the head against the body before you join them. A head that is too big always pulls a realistic piece back towards cute. Blending the coat shades first is covered in how to blend wool colours, and the finer face work in needle felted face.

How do you make long rabbit ears with wire?

Bend a 26 gauge (0.4 mm) cloth-covered floral wire into a narrow hairpin the shape of the ear outline, with the two ends left about ⅜ in (1 cm) long below the base. Felt wool over both faces of the hairpin on the foam pad, needling beside the wire rather than onto it, then push the two wire ends down into the skull and felt over the join. A wired ear can be tilted, folded at the tip or turned to listen, and it stays put. That matters most on ears longer than about 1½ in (4 cm), where wool alone sags however hard it is felted. The general method is in wire armature for needle felting.

• Inner ear color. Lay a thin wisp of pale pink or cream on the front face only, leaving a border of the coat color about 1/16 in (2 mm) wide all round. On a white or pale rabbit the inside looks pink; on a brown wild rabbit it is a pale buff, not pink. A few strokes of a 40 gauge needle down the middle give the shallow groove a real ear has.
• Lop ears. Attach them lower, at the sides of the head where an upright ear's base would be, and build a small ridge of wool across the top of the skull between them, the crown. The ear hangs with its opening facing in towards the cheek, and its tip reaches about to the jaw. A lop's head is also shorter and rounder than an upright-eared rabbit's.
• Hare ears. Clearly longer than the head, with black tips. These always need wire.

Which pose: sitting, loaf or standing?

Sitting and loaf poses need no wire. Standing up on the hind legs needs a full armature. The table shows how the base shape changes for each.

The loaf is the quickest of the four and the easiest one to make look like a real rabbit, because there are no legs to get wrong. A group of needle felt bunnies in mixed poses looks better together than a matched set. Try one sitting, one in a loaf and one baby.

Making it a keyring or an ornament

Needle a loop of embroidery thread or a small screw eye into the top of the head before the final surface veils, then cover the base of the loop with wool. Doing it afterwards never looks as tidy. Small rabbits also work as bag charms.

Where to go next

The rabbit teaches the join, the flat-piece method for ears, and simple facial dents. All three carry directly into a fox, a sheep and a hedgehog. For a full run of starter projects see needle felting ideas for beginners.