Needlefelted Fairy Mobile Tutorial

I made this fairy mobile for my niece's 8th birthday. I was on a strict budget and did not have a lot of money to spend on birthday presents. But I do have lots and lots of coloured wool roving in my craft room, so all I needed to buy was wire. This mobile cost me very little money (less than $2) and a bit of time. 

You will need:  

* Wool roving - This is carded, unspun wool. Carding wool is a process that combs wool fleece and makes it usable. You probably want a variety of colours. There are a number of options if you wish to dye your own wool - my mum used to use food colouring to dye wool; Fruits, flowers and vegetables can be used to dye wool, eg onion skins, and beetroot; Otherwise, you can purchase dyes from craft shops and wool shops.

* Wire

* Pliers

* Felting Needles. These are special barbed needles that come in a variety of sizes. 

* Felting Mat or thick sponge pad.  Car wash sponges work well.

First, bend the wire into a circular shape to the size you require. I made two rounds, twisting the ends of the wire around the circular shape. 

Then get a decent length of wool roving and begin wrapping it tightly around the wire shape, until you reach the desired thickness. You want it reasonably thick, to be able to felt it using needles without hitting the wire all the time and bending your needle. Unfortunately I don't have photos of this part, as I didn't think about doing a tutorial until I began adding the flowers and details.  But you get some idea of the thickness in the photo. Once you have wrapped the wool around, put it on your felting pad or sponge, and begin stabbing it with your needle (this is a great way to get out any frustration that has been building up inside you). Use a large size needle to begin with, and use an up-and-down motion, rather than side to side (otherwise you risk damaging either your needle or yourself - and trust me, it hurts!). Try to avoid the wire as much as possible, but make sure you rotate it and felt the whole thing evenly.  Add more wool if some parts are skinnier than others.  Change to a smaller needle as the wool fibres begin to mesh together. 

 I learnt how to make angels from wool roving in an online tutorial. There are many tutorials online that show you how to make them. I just omit the wings and add a little bit more roving to the skirt to make fairies such as these. When I first began this fairy I made her arms rather short (as you can see) but I added extra wool to her arms to extend them, and you can see the difference between this photo and the photo of the finished mobile. 

Once you have felted the mobile's base, you can begin adding detail. To create flowers, get a tiny little bit of wool roving between your fingers and wrap it around your little finger to make a ring shape. Take it off your finger, squash it together onto your base, and begin stabbing it in.  

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Once you have stabbed in the flower, you can add a centre.  Get a tiny bit of a different colour, and roll it into a little ball between your fingers. Place it into the centre of the flower and stab it in using a fine needle. I use a size 34 or 32 for fine detailing - whichever feels best.

Repeat until you have the desired amount of flowers. You can use this technique to add flowers to fairies' hair; dresses; whatever you are creating.

To create a ladybird, get a small amount of red wool and roll between your fingers to create a small ball.  Rolling it between your fingers helps prepare the wool and shape it ready for felting. Stab it into place. Get a tiny amount of black (eg 2-3 threads) and roll into tiny balls to felt into place on the ladybirds back. You will need to use a fine needle for this.  Get some more black to felt for the head and the line between the wings.

The rabbit was created by rolling a fat oval and stabbing it into shape; 2 little ovals for the ears; and a small ball for the head. It is ok if things are not perfect straight away - it takes time, and at first it often feels like it is looking like nothing you had imagined.  That is ok.  Keep stabbing, add more wool if you need to; and if it really turns bad, pull it off and start again.  

The toadstools were made by rolling fat sausages for the stalks and stabbing roughly into shape and then stabbing into place. You do not want to over felt something if you are going to attach it - you want to keep the fibres where it is to be attached, fairly loose, so that it can be felted into the attachment.  It is difficult (ie, impossible) to attach firmly felted items to something, and vice versa. When making the toadstools, you need to keep the top of the stalk loose, so that the tops can be felted on.

To create the tops of the toadstools, roll some red wool into shape and stab over the top of the stalks. You might want to wrap the red wool around the stalk, so that it is firmly attached to the toadstool. There is no right or wrong way - do what works with you, and give yourself the freedom to experiment and try things out and don't give up if it is not working straight away.

Roll a little bit of white roving between your fingers and stab into place over the toadstool tops.

To add writing, take a long, thin piece of roving and roll it between your fingers into a thin line. Place into shape and use a fine felting needle to stab into place.

 

To create the butterfly, get a small piece of roving as in the above picture. I used two colours. Roll the roving into a ball and place on your felting pad. Stab into shape. I used the finer needle down the middle to create shape.  Remember that the more you felt something, the more the fibres mesh together and shrinks in size. Get a small piece (a few strands) of black.  Roll between  your fingers to create a line and place over the middle of the butterfly; stab into place using a fine needle.

Once you have created your butterfly, place on your base and stab into place.

The dragonfly was created by mixing a bit of sparkly non bondable Angelina with wool roving, shaping into thin lines and stabbing into place.

I hope this has helped to inspire you to have a go at felting if you haven't already.

You can find my other needlefelting tutorials here...
 Felted Balls