A Beginner's Guide to Needle Felting: Part 3: Putting Elements Together

You'll want to make sure your work area is comfortably set up. Clear away the packages of wool roving for now; all you'll currently need are the petals you've already felted and your felting tools. You will want to keep a small bit of fiber easily accessible, though, should you need to add more roving for stability.

If you've made all of your felted petals similar sizes, check to see if there's an obviously smaller one. If they're all very different sizes, choose the smallest one you've made. Fold over one half onto the other loosely, making a kind of funnel shape. This will be the center of the flower. Begin poking where the two halves meet, either with the pen tool or a single felting needle, until the petal begins to felt together and hold the funnel shape on its own. If you're having trouble getting it to stay the way you want it, you may have felted it too much when making the petal shape. To fix this, needlefelt a tiny bit more fiber to the area you're working on and continue working it until you've got it strongly held together. Again, remember to flip the work over at times to get it thoroughly felted and to make sure the fibers aren't all stuck into the mat.

Once you've got your flower center looking the way you want it to, select a slightly larger petal. Choose which side you'll want showing on the flower when it's finished. Place the backside onto the mat. Place the center piece on top of it. Attach the pieces together by felting the front of the small point of the funnel shaped center piece to the bottom of the second petal. It's your choice as to whether you want to center it or make it slightly off kilter. Real flowers are not perfect and nor do your fiber ones need to be. If you find you need extra fiber to create a stronger bond between the petals, flip the piece over and add a small amount of wool roving to the back of the second petal and poke with the needle until it's well matted and felted together. Attach a third petal - again slightly larger - in the same manner, only this time placing it opposite the one you've just done.

Continue working in this way, all the way around the flower, until you have all of your petals attached. If you like the way the flower looks you'll want to begin the leaves. If you don't, work on it further. Add more petals to places you feel are too bare, or work the fiber so that the petals are smaller in places you feel they're too large.

These particular needle felting instructions are basically the same regardless of your project. You needlefelt individual pieces and then attach them by adding more roving and felting them together. If you are using wet felting techniques combined with needle felting, or adding needle felted accents to wool sweaters or scarves then you may have to attach in a different manner. If you are adding small details such as eyes or spots, then you would just add roving to the main piece and work it in, rather than creating eyes and then attempting to attach them. That's more detailed work though, and for now focus on the very basics.