Stuffed animals are irresistible to children and adults alike and the simple process of needle felting is a great way to enjoy them at home. This fun, creative process is easy to learn and share with your children for years to come.

Needle felting can be done with either wool roving or with yarn, but we used yarn as it is more readily available. This little sheep was made with a single-twist yarn in a wool-alpaca blend. The looped fur of the sheep is a forgiving surface for your first animal.

Felting needles have scales on their surface that push the fibers together bonding them to each other. It is much like the process that happens naturally with wet felting but the needles do manually what heat, agitation and water do during wet felting. The dry clean nature of needle felting makes it a great craft to do just about anywhere.

Materials:

Tools:

Needle felting pen (holds three needles); available at craft stores and online
Felting needles
Needle felting mat, either brush or foam
Scissors

About the felting mat (Brush or Foam)
The needle-felting mat is the surface you will felt on to protect the needles from breaking and to protect your hands or lap from being punctured by the needles.

Additional tips:
- The more you pierce an area, the more it will create an indentation.
- Make contours on the body by piercing areas to create indentations.
- If eye sockets are desired, pierce with only one needle. Another color fiber can be added for the eye color.

Directions for a lamb

For the Body:
1. Wind yarn loosely around your palm about 45 to 50 times. Remove bundle from hand and coil more yarn around the bundle in opposite direction. Coil around bundle should not be too tight, but not so loose it wants to slip off. The final product should look like a bundle of rope.

2. Puncture bundle with felting needles, at a 90-degree angle on surface of needle-felting mat, in several places to hold it together. If bundle is tightly wrapped and coiled it will be hard to puncture later in the process with felting needles.

For the Head:
1. Make the head in same manner as body but wrap yarn only 20 times around three fingers. Coil yarn around the head bundle building up the yarn at one end more than the other. The narrower end will be the nose and the thicker end will be the crest of the head. Leave a short length of loops at one end to attach the head to the body with.

2. Puncture bundle with felting needles in several places to hold it together.

For the Legs:
1. Make four legs in same manner as body but wrap only 10 times around 4 fingers for each. The yarn coiling should go up the leg bundle ¾ of the length leaving loops free at one end to attach the legs to the body.

2. Puncture the bundle with the felting needles in several places to hold it together.

3. Use an alternate color of yarn and cover the tips of the feet with a thin layer of fiber by piercing them with the felting needles.

4. Create fur by covering rest of legs three quarters up with body color by making small loops and piercing them to attach each loop.

Attaching body parts:
1. Overlap loops at crest of head with loops at one end of body bundle and pierce them until bonded together. This will take several minutes of piercing. Be sure to pierce all the way around head (at the neck) to securely attach to body.

2. Attach legs to the body by piercing through large loops left at one end.

For the Fur:
1. Make loops with the wool to cover the body. Several layers of loops can be added to make body thicker if necessary.

2. Before finishing looped fur on head, attach a thin layer of yarn, similar to the color of the feet, onto the nose; then finish adding looped fur to head.

For the Tail:
Make a very small bundle wrapped around 2 fingers 3 times for the tail. Loop the surface and attach it as the tail of the lamb.

For the Ears:
Make two even smaller bundles for the ears and loop them. Attach them to either side of the head.

Special thanks to:
Clover USA
www.Clover-usa.com