The Making of the Needle Felted Retriever Puppy

This video combines accelerated and time-lapse recording of me needle felting the retriever puppy from start to finish. It is about 18 hours of needle felted work condensed into 14 minutes.

This puppy is my annual free giveaway item for 2018. Enter to win through May 13, 2018 at www.facebook.com/KreationsByKrysta/


Materials Used:

A FOAM PAD
It doesn't have to be foam, there are other options out there as well. Just make sure it is for needle felting. You need a some sort of surface to work on that will prevent your needle from damaging the table-- or breaking the needle!

A FELTING NEEDLE
40T is my favorite, but please NOTE that these needles do break from time to time, so buy more than one. A 36T is less likely to break, but will not give as nice of a finish and doesn't grab the wool as perfectly. But it can be useful in thick, dense areas, or to attach legs to the body, etc. However, the 40T can be used for the entire project, as long as you are careful.

WOOL
I used almost entirely natural core wool roving on this project (probably 1 or 2 oz).
The paw pads, nose, mouth and edge details around the eyes are black wool (less than 0.5 oz.).
And I added some tannish wool as accents on the top of the puppy's back, tail, ears etc. (a very small amount-- maybe 1 gram)

OPTIONAL
On this puppy I also used clear safety eyes (6 mm size) which are glued in place with tacky glue. I like to use the safety eyes because they give a shine to the eyes and I can paint the back side of the eye whatever color I need for a given animal. But you could simply make the eyes out of black wool instead (like the nose).

I did opt to use wire (18 gauge floral wire which I then wrapped with chenille stem "pipe cleaners") inside the front legs and tail, but on something this small, and in a sitting pose, that is not absolutely necessary. The reason for the chenille stem is that it grips the wool easily as you wrap the wool around the wire.



Mesmerize by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
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