Try Needlefelting

by Marisa Pinson

Do you like tiny cute fuzzy adorable things? Have you neglected your New Year’s resolution to be more CrEaTiVe? Do you just need to occupy your hands so you stop using them to shove pastries in your mouth? Whatever your reason, needlefelting is the purrrfect (sorry) craft, because it’s low on commitment and high on adorablahaaaz results. The things you need are wool roving, a needlefelting needle, and a block of foam about the size of a sandwich. All this stuff can be purchased at any crafty place, and a small piece can be created in like an hour. You can be a zillion percent more whimsical by sundown!

So, how it works is that the needle has all these little spiny bits covering it. When you stab it into the loose fluffy wool and pull it out (over and over again) it creates tangles. The tangles get more and more snarly until they turn into, essentially, sheep dreadlocks. The more you stab in one area, the more compact and tighter the wool gets, and that’s what creates the contours and shapes. (The foam goes underneath the wool you’re working with so you don’t stab your lap.) You’ll probably stab yourself in the thumb on accident a few times, which you can just consider as punishment for something dumb you said earlier.

Sculptures are created by taking a small ball of the loose roving and jab jab jabbing it around, turning the sides so it goes round. If you stab the same side all over for a long time, it goes flat. Flat is good for ears and stuff, but round is good for heads and bodies. Once that ball is pretty tight — about grape sized — take a slightly larger tuft and jab jab jab until it’s tight and round, too. That makes a body. The head and the body can be connected by stabs, so you can pierce the needle through both pieces to tangle them up so they stay connected. Details like legs and ears are made from small bits of roving, rolled out and jabbed until they come together in the desired shapes. They are attached the same way.

Like everything worth learning how to do, there are lots of YouTube videos on the subject. This one has a lady making a cute owl:

My favorites are the tiny cute animals like the fox above, or tiny foods like this:

But there’s always the option to make something like this:

Marisa Pinson is a comedian in Los Angeles. She writes at dealbreaker.tumblr.com and performs at the UCB Theatre in L.A.