Needles

Felting needles are available in a range of gauges and shapes with a different number and placement of notches up the shaft, making them suitable for different kinds of felting. I’ve listed the ones I use most below and will continue to add a few more. Handle all your needles with care, especially the finer ones. When you are felting, keep your stabbing motion straight (at whatever angle you are working); needles snap when you insert and bend. If you are working with a wire armature, you’ll also need to take care not to hit the wire. All of this gets easier with practise and becomes more intuitive. Take care not to poke yourself (those needles are sharp!). Use a gentle, quick stabbing motion, close together. For shaping, the needle goes in a little further than for surface details. In general, you’re only using the bottom 1/4-1/3 of the needle.

Gauges: The most commonly used gauges run from 36-42; the higher the number the finer gauge, and correspondingly, they are generally used for finer fibres and finishing surfaces.

36 gauge needles are great for starting to build up your core wool and for shaping and sculpting later on.

38 are slightly finer and are good for when you start to go in and shape your wool, working the surface so it is smoother.

40-42 are quite fine and are good for working with finer fibres and surface details. The best thing to do is just play and experiment with a variety of needles (and keep a notebook of which one you like best for what!).

You can use multi needle tools. I tend to use a single needle, unless I am working on a larger flat surface. But see what works for you. For flat surface surface detail, a 5 needle tool is good, whereas for sculpting, a 2-3 needle tool is what you want to be using (unless, like me, you prefer a single needle).