Needle Felting Art

Discover how to create 12 irresistible woodland-inspired needle-felted designs using wool-painting and mixed-media methods. This book takes inspiration from the Scottish landscape, featuring wildlife, foliage and scenic details. Projects use illustrated steps, full-sized templates and stencils. Suitable for even beginners, it encourages blending embroidery, watercolours and found objects to add depth and texture.

Create 12 woodland-themed works of art using simple techniques. Needle felting is an easy, enjoyable craft for all abilities. Everything is covered in the book from key tools and essential techniques, to framing and displaying finished pieces.

A sense of a place. Lochhead has been a resident of the Scottish land, having a love of nature. This book in its entirety will showcase that, yet the visual projects themselves are universal and thematically timeless - bluebell woods, pine forests and the creatures of kind which reside within our natural world. All brought into existence with applied needle felting techniques.

Why this book sits with an edge in a saturated woollen world

Honestly, I have read many a felt related title, all with their own strong points. However unless it forms your entire art practice, it is a blank space of too much too much. That’s where this book has an edge. Note the evidence in the title. We are here not reading only a felt book, it is about the mixing of media and the application of paint. All tools we can personalise and adapt. That makes it have much more appeal to experienced felt makers, those who wish to extend and refresh their outcomes. The other angle is for the new to felt individual - the projects are fun and challenging yet approachable.

The projects

So, projects really play with the countryside. I loved the hedgehog on page 70. We are looking at depictions visually of creatures and natural content, which we will recongnise, yet they often have a cute twist, even facially like this little hedgehog, who is said to be staring at the nighttime view.

The pine forest in the pages around the 30’s shows how paint can be applied along with needle felting. That makes for more of a painted look, using watercolour like substances to provide the lush colours of the forest.

The projects are often canvas based, which makes for wall mounted works - so they become textural paintings as it were.

Advice

We are given advice on the materials and tools required, this mostly will make sense without looking at it - it’s intuitive to those of us with some experience. But for those with less confidence, paint type direction and all the other needed parts will be really helpful.

The project templates are all given at the back, ready to create the right size.

Conclusion

All you need is a love of nature and a desire to outlay your style in stitch, paint and of course, wool.

As I mentioned earlier, what I really liked about this book is its mixed media edge and the fact it contains work outcomes which look off the edge of real life - I see children book illustration vibes - do we need an excuse to get lost in our own nature world? This can be yours.

Jo Lochhead is the founder and creative director of The Crafty Kit Company, an award winning business which produces soft craft kits inspired by the beautiful landscape, flora and fauna of East Lothian, where the business is based. She comes from a creative background: her father was a watercolour artist, her brother runs a successful ceramics business, and her mother still knits, sews and crochets. Jo discovered the joy of creating everlasting flowers from felt in 2020 and has shared the techniques she has learned with thousands of people since, through online workshops and social media.

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