Hi, I posted the step-by-step instructions the other day of how you can make a poppy for Remembrance Day from felt sheets and I provided a template sheet to help make them. Today, I am posting the tutorial of how to make a needle felted poppy. Both poppies can be made using the same templates and as it’s my design and templates I am more than happy for them to be shared, copies, made and sold for fundraising for the Poppy Appeal.

Needle Felting is the process of taking wool fibres and felting them together by using a barbed needle. As you push the needle in and out of the fibres they become matted, knotted together to form felt. You can sculpt these wool fibres by shaping them with your barbed needle. You can felt these fibres to create 2D and 3D shapes and you felt directly onto fabric to embellish your textile projects. I have previously posted other needle felting tutorials on that may help to give more background or other ideas to try regarding needle felting which you can check out on these links if your interested https://hochandablog.com/2018/04/15/needle-felted-flower-brooch-by-lore-green/ https://hochandablog.com/2017/08/04/needle-felted-goldfish-by-lore-green/

This poppy tutorial is perfect if your new to needle felting as consists of familiar and simple shapes and is not too intricate. As mentioned above, the felt is formed by pushing and pulling your needle through the fibres, the more you do this in a particular area the tighter the fibres knot and bind together. The tighter the fibres bind together the firmer and smaller the shape will become. The main thing to bear in mind when you’re needle felting is that you need to pull the needle out in the same angle and direction as you pushed it in as the needles are quite fine and easily snap. Bear in mind also that the needles are barbed and quite sharp, they can hurt you a little bit if you accidentally prick yourself with one but this can often be avoided with the use of a leather finger-guard.

To Make a Needle Felted Poppy

You will need:

• Wool fibres (pre-spun wool also known as wool roving) in red, green and black
• Needle felting needles
• Needle felting mat/pad
• Leather finger-guard
• Brooch pin
• Templates

First, print off the poppy making templates if you wish to refer to them for shape or size. If you can’t print them off or you are quite comfortable in needle felting without a template you can choose to form your felted flower parts from looking at the shapes formed in the step-by-step photos. The templates are below and were scanned in on an A4 sheet of paper (the white background represents a full A4 sheet of paper). I’m sorry that I couldn’t get them put in a PDF but if you print the image as A4 it should come out ok.

Next, take some red wool fibres and create a loose loop with them that roughly fits around the petal template, tuck the ends of that loop around the bottom of the template and then up towards the centre of the shape. Place the fibres on your mat/pad and use your needle to start felting the fibres together. Add more fibres to your petal shape as you go, filling in any thinning areas or to pad-out your shape. The shape will shrink and pull in the more you needle felt that area. Check the petal shape against the template every now and again. When you are happy with your first petal repeat the process to make two more petals.

To make the leaves you need to take some green wool fibres and make a small loop that fits around the top-most part of the leaf template. Take that loop your felting mat/pad and start felting the tip of that loop, leave the rest of the loop loose. Once you’ve formed a rough shape of the tip take it back to your template.

Take another small amount of wool fibres and loop it over the first curve on one side of the leaf template making sure to overlap the fibres in this loop with the loose fibres at the ends of the tip you have just formed. Back at your felting mat/pad, felt with your needle this new loop onto the loose fibres below the tip of the leaf and felt the loop into the curved shape on one side of the leaf. Repeat the same process for the first curve on the opposite side of the leaf. Tweak your shape against the template as you go. Once you’ve created the first curve of the leaf on both sides you will need to repeat the process for adding the bottom sections of the leaf. Add and overlap the fibres of your new leaf sections to join them all up. Add fibres to ‘fill-in’ and ‘fill-out’ your leaf. You can sculpt your shape further by pushing and pulling your needle in more in certain areas to ‘pinch’ the shape as the fibres tighten the more you needle it. You can also ‘pinch’ and shape by changing the angle or direction of the needle to create points or indents.

Don’t worry too much about making your felt pieces fit the template exactly as this form of felting is a little looser than say cutting felt sheets with scissors and you’ll rarely make two parts exactly the same (as you can see from the photo), just go with the flow and work with what comes out of it.

Once you have made the petals and the leaves you will need to felt the pieces together. Take your petals and arrange them with the petals overlapping each other on one side, sort of ‘up-and-under’. Take your needle and push it through the bottom of the petals where the petals overlap. As you push and pull the needle through the petals the fibres will bind together and be secured, the more you needle the tighter the bond. Place the leaves under the flower and needle the leaves to the back of the poppy through the centre of the flower until the leaves are fixed in place.

To finish, take some black wool and felt them into a ball for the centre of the poppy. To felt a ball shape, keep folding the fibres towards the middle of the ball as you flip and rotate the fibres as you needle felt them and eventually the fibres will tighten into a ball. Place the felted ball into the centre of the poppy and attach it by pushing and pulling your needle through it and into the centre of the poppy. If you find this bit a little tricky add a tiny pinch of loose black fibres at the bottom of the ball where it touches the centre of the poppy and needle into the bottom of the ball through the loose black fibres and the centre of the flower. Finish by felting, stitching or gluing a brochure pin to the back of the poppy. To felt the pin to the back you just need to wrap/loop some loose fibres around the brooch pin then needle those fibres to the back of the poppy till the pin is held firmly in place.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and found it helpful. Feel free to share the templates and use them for fundraising for the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal. Thanks for stopping by, Lore x