Felt 101: Tips & Tricks for Felt Projects

To craft school, we're gonna start our felt series with a little bit of felt 101, and I'm gonna talk about the different styles of felt you can use and all these different tips and tricks to make these gorgeous projects. Felt is one of my favorite new materials, after paper, that is, of course, and you can use it to make kids' toys, you can do felt projects for kids that they can make themselves, and you can also do beautiful decorative items and gifts, which is why I love felt so much. It's easy to work with, it's easy to sew, and there's so many beautiful colors and options out there right now. One of the basic things that you can use felt for are kids' crafts, and here are a few things that we did where we cut out some felt and just simply hot glued or glued them onto a pine cone, and we have a cork here, great for kids' crafts, they're great for seasonal projects and designs, so this is something that comes in handy all the time for felt. Another thing we love to do are felt stuffies, and there's a lot of detail you can add to these. These are great for kids' toys, you want them to be kind of heirloom toys, you keep them forever, they keep clean, they wash well, depending on which felt you use, and as you can see, there's a lot of detail that you can add to a stuffy. We have button eyes and we have little beads on these starfish here. We made this little hat for the top of the octopus. A lot of personality that you can do with just a few extra pieces, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that later. Another favorite thing that we love to do is felt food, and you'll see more and more of this coming to our site, because you're gonna wanna know how to do all the different stitches so you can do this. I mean, look how fun this is. We have pickles and onions and the tomato. I mean, the whole thing's right there. Look at those grill marks on the burger themselves. We also have little accessories for girls, and this is so delicate and tiny, and you can do this with felt, and again, it will last for a long time because the quality of felt that we use on this is really high, and this will be something that they can pass on to their children as well. Felt is such a great material to use for kids' toys and kids' projects, but it's also great for adults, and here I've made a felt flower that you can give to your mom for Mother's Day. She can wear it on her jacket or her dress, and she'll have it for years to come. We have things for your hair, beautiful coasters that you can give as a gift. You know, this is a felt pincushion. How fun is this? Everyone wants a pincushion like that. One of the most pin felt projects on our site is actually this felt box coffee sleeve. How cute is that? And so easy to make. So let's talk about felt, because there are different kinds of felt, and it's really important if you're gonna fall in love with it that you know exactly what to use. So there's the felt that you buy in the craft store, and quite frankly, it's really hard to work with. There's some of it that's made out of recycled bottles, and that's nicer. It has a nicer touch to the hand. However, it does stretch, and it almost rips apart really easy. I mean, look at how this stretches, and it doesn't, you know, snap back into shape. You know, this is a very inexpensive made-in-China felt. It doesn't feel very good to the touch. These two types of felt are actually perfect for kids. If you wanna have kids' crafts where they glue things together, perfect for that. But I don't use this felt for any of my long-term beautiful projects that need stitching, because it's kind of a waste of my time to use something this inexpensive. The felt that we use the most is actually a felt-wool blend, and there's about a 10% wool, with the rest being acrylic. And this comes in beautiful colors. It has a nice touch. It feels good. The weight's great. It sews so nicely, and this is what we recommend for most of the crafts, because it's reasonably inexpensive, and you can use it for a lot of things. My favorite felt is actually 100% wool felt, and this one is just gorgeous, and you can tell. It just feels so nice to the touch. This would be something that you'd wanna use for an heirloom project, maybe something more for an adult project, but it's up to you. These are my two favorites. Take your pick, and it will give you resources on where to find these. One of the tools that you need when you work with felt is a great pair of scissors, and we love these Fiskars Amplify. Look how beautifully they cut through the felt. You can do a lot of little detail work with these scissors. I think they're a really good investment. You'll also wanna get some embroidery needles, and we like these Gold Eye embroidery needles from Clover. They're easy to get the embroidery floss through, and they go right through the felt. Now, embroidery thread, that's another conversation, and we love it because there are so many color options out there. You can get bright colors, soft colors, even these metallics, which we use quite a bit of in a lot of our projects. There's different brands you can find. It's really all about the color when you pick out embroidery thread, more so than the brand, because they're all really good. You can see on some of these projects how we use multiple colors for each, and it's just really nice to have a great stash. They're inexpensive. Fill your drawer with all these threads, and then you're gonna be ready for almost any project. On some of your projects, you may not wanna stitch with embroidery floss, so there's other ways to put things together. One of our favorite ways is hot glue, and hot glue holds the felt together really well. You can see on this flower that we made, these will stay forever because it will go right into the fibers and will not release. However, this is really something more for the grownups to use, and for kids, you might wanna try a tacky glue. Tacky glue is good, however, you can't stitch through it, nor can you stitch through hot glue, and this would be a perfect glue if you're having a kid make one of these projects for your Thanksgiving dinner. This is perfect. It dries clear. It works really well for them because it won't burn them, so this is something that we really like to use. Another option is this iron-on fusible interface, and this is a brand called Stitch Witchery. You can get this at your fabric store in big sheets, and we absolutely love this because you can stitch through it, and it will hold your pieces together really nicely. Here's a mask that we made. We had a back piece on the back. Rather than using a hot glue or a tacky glue, this made a really even, flat surface, and it's really easy to use. Again, this is more of an adult way to use it. You don't want kids with the iron, but here are all the options that we found we love. Now, here's a trick that we just figured out and we're falling in love with it, and that is using iron-on onto the felt. Now, you're going to need to use a wool blend or 100% wool felt for this, but look how cute this is. Look at this watering can. Made of felt, but it looks like metal. We've also used this for some jewelry as well. Another way to add some detail to your felt projects is with markers. Now, we use any kind of art markers. You can get at the art supply store, Winsor & Newton or Copic. They're both really good brands, and I don't know if you can see the little bit of toasting on this bun. That was done with a little bit of a marker. Now, check out this surprise. The burger has some grill marks, and that was done with a marker. Very easy to do. Here, we did a little bit of a variegated color, and this was all done with a marker, and it's very simple. I'll use the bigger end of the marker. As you can see, there's a flat end that's a little bit finer, and then this kind of a broad point, and I'll use this broad point, and hold it at an angle, and just kind of brush it on there like you would paint. And once this dries, it will stay on. It won't wash off. You can even take your finger and move it around just a little bit if you want to. Some of the fibers pick up a bit more color than others, but it still gives you a really great way to add a little bit of color and variation. The stitch that we used the most was the blanket stitch, so we'll start with that, and I've already threaded my needle with the embroidery floss, and I'll tie a knot at the end, just a nice, easy slipknot. You can cut the end off later when you're done, and put the needle from the back about an eighth of an inch from the edge. We'll start here at the corner. The needle right through the same hole again to create this loop. I'm gonna put my finger right there in that loop just to hold it because before it's all the way closed, I'll put my needle right back through it so that I can begin with the thread behind the loop. I'll bring the thread right along the edge and then create another stitch, and again, you can decide how far you want your stitches apart. The thing is, you want to be consistent all the way through your project, so pick your width and go for it. All right, so I'll start right here. Before I pull it through, I'm gonna take the top of my thread and loop it over the needle, and that way, it keeps the thread right on the top of the seam. You'll want to use your nails and kind of keep the threads moving right along the top of the seam because in the end, you'll want the stitches to be exactly vertical with a horizontal stitch right along the seam, and that's why they call it a blanket stitch. So let's keep going. Again, I'll pick a hole about the same width as the last one. Might poke around just a few times until you get the rhythm. Loop that around and then pull it through. And then you just keep going. You know, it's funny because the more you do this, the better your stitches will be, the more even they'll be, and pretty soon, you will look like a pro. It's always good to maybe take a square and practice a few before you start a big project. I think you'll feel much more comfortable taking on a whole stuffy if you've already gotten the method of these stitches down. You know, depending on your project, you might choose a wider stitch if it's a little bit more freeform and rustic. And then there's other projects like these little teeny tiny animals here where you want very tiny stitches. Also, if you're doing something finer, you might pull apart some of your threads and maybe use half of the thread rather than the whole thing. That's the wonderful thing about embroidery thread is you can make it the thickness and density that you need for each project. One of the things to remember is make sure and pull your thread through your needle as you go. You never want to have this double thread. You know, sometimes you might accidentally just sew it right in because it'll become too thick and it'll look uneven. So make sure that you keep this pulled out so you're only using one set of threads. Then I'm gonna show you how to work a corner. The corners look really nicely if you can do it at a direct angle. So I'll put it right there at the corner and then I'll pull my thread through so that it ends at the point. And then I keep moving down the other side. That gives it a really nice finish. Now I'm gonna sew together two layers. And if you want to, go ahead and run a pin through your layers to keep everything in place. Another trick, if you're working on a small project and you want to make sure that your stitches come out even, you can take a pencil and a ruler and you can actually map out your stitches. If you use a pencil, usually you can rub it off and you won't be able to see it. But this will give you a little bit more of a guide as you go around and make it a little bit easier for you to just stitch away and not worry about things coming out. So I've tied my knot. And to start a project with two layers, I'll actually put my needle through the inside of one layer so that the end of my knot is on the inside. Make sure it's tucked in. Bring that back through. And the stitch is actually exactly the same as what we've done before. You're just working with two layers, so you'll want to just be conscious about keeping things nice and even as you stitch around. I usually put a lot of thread on my needle because I don't like running out of thread when I'm working on a project. But if you happen to run out of thread, all you have to do is make for sure that your end and your beginning is also on the inside and you can probably just make it look as seamless as if you had one long thread. It's an easy fix. When you're making these 3D stuffies or toys, you're gonna need to fill them with something. So what we use is this polyfill. And you can get these in big bags at your fabric store. And this works really well for any type of stuffy. Another thing that we use is this quilt batting. And this is for those times when you might want a pizza that's not such a thin crust. It just gives a little bit of extra fill, makes it a little bit thicker, and it's perfect for those little projects where you want something thin, but yet have some sort of stuffing inside. And it makes it nice and flat rather than making this a little bit more bumpy. I've worked my stitch all the way around the heart and I'm ready to fill it. Take my pin out. And I have my polyfill here. One of the things that I like to use is a pencil or a Dell with a blunt edge, a pointy edge, depending on what you need. Or you can even use a chopstick for this. Just open that up and gently stuff it. Sometimes you'll want them to be stuffed soft, sometimes a little bit firmer. You can decide that as you go. Once you get kind of a big chunk of it put in here, you're gonna wanna work it back over to the other side. And then you might even wanna take one of these tools, the pencil or the chopstick, and help you work it down into the little corners. I wanna get it down into that point. Use my pointer there, that works really nicely. Kind of squish it and move it around with your fingers. Now I'll stitch this heart closed. Last stitch. The way that I like to finish off my thread is to give myself a knot first. So I'll run that through this direction, and then loop the thread around, maybe twice, and pull it through. Then, to make it really tight and you won't have the end showing through, I'll take my needle and run it right through the opening and back out to the other side of the seam. Pull my thread all the way through. And I'll clip that. And then sort of move it around so the thread goes back inside the stuffy. Another stitch that's great to know is a running stitch. And we use it for all the details on these pieces. You can see some very large ones here, some very tiny ones on this little ear of the bunny. And oftentimes they're a little bit more decorative, but sometimes you might want them to hold another piece on. And you'll notice on this coaster leaf that the stitch is actually on just one layer because it's more of a decorative stitch and it's not all the way through. So you would do that before you sew them together. Now this stitch is really easy. It's exactly what you see. You just go back and forth, front to back. And the trick is just to keep things as even as possible. And I'll tell you, if it's not even, it looks a little more homemade and that's okay too. Another really simple stitch is a whip stitch. And this is when you want to actually sew two layers together to hold them together. You'll see this right here on the ladybug. There's a whip stitch all the way around. And it's kind of like a blanket stitch, except you don't see the thread on the top. So you keep the thread underneath. You want to make your stitches as vertical as possible so that you have a nice even line that goes along the edge there. Very simple. You may use this once in a while, maybe not as much. It's not as decorative. It's just a little bit of a simple way to add that detail without a lot of thread showing. I keep my whip stitches really close to the edge, just enough to hold it on. This is not gonna be something that will be pulled apart. So you can be pretty delicate. Again, it's where you don't want a lot of thread to show. Another way to use either of these stitches are these little seed stitches. And these are very decorative. They're just to add the detail of little hairs on the forehead of your animals. And it's the same way. You just go randomly. You'll want to do it before you sew anything together so it's just on one layer. So I wouldn't do it with two layers, but I'll just show you here. So I want to have just these little details in the center. Easy. They're almost like little embroidery stitches, adding color, texture, detail. You might even add little tiny eyes by doing this stitch. You can make them big, you can make them small. There's three different sizes for you to take a look at. Tiny, medium, and large. The last stitch I'm going to show you is the French knot. You can see how we used a French knot here on our tomato to make these tomato seeds. Really cute. Sometimes they come in really handy. So I'll put the needle right through my felt and then I'll take a very tiny stitch right at the same spot as where my needle came through. You'll wrap your thread around your needle. The more times you go, the larger your knot. And then very, very carefully, you'll want to slide this through. You don't want your threads to get bunched and tangled. So you have to kind of do this gently. I'm holding all of those wraps so that everything stays in place. And pull this as tight as you can. Use your fingernails to push it down. And then put your stitch right back through the same hole. And there you have a French knot. I'll see you in the next lesson where we will be making a felt project together.