Craft: Craft: Make Make a a lasting lasting tribute with beautiful felted poppies
Make this beautiful poppy in needle felting following our step-by-step instructions.
You Will Need
✿ A Poppy Pack from the Makerss (see page 74) OR
✿ Wool batts or roving (approx 1-2g per poppy) in reds, black, yellow and green ✿ Water-soluble paper
✿ A few seed beads (we used yellow/green)
✿ Sparkly Angelina Fibre (we used Peacock)
✿ Sewing thread to attach beads (not included in pack)
✿ Brooch backs (optional and not included in pack)
Tools
✿ Scissors
✿ Pencil
✿ Selection of felting needles
(we recommend 7x holder) ✿ Felting mat
✿ Fine sewing or beading
needle
Mixing wool
You can use a single colour of wool or mix colours to create a variegated effect. To mix, take a pinch of each colour and hold between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and then tease apart. Lay the pinches of teased wool one on top of the other and tease apart again. Repeat until mixed.
1. Cut a workable piece of water-soluble paper and trace the first poppy outline on with pencil. 2. Take a small pinch of red wool and lay on to the paper overlapping the outline. 3. Using a coarse needle, stab in a line along the drawn outline. You won’t be able to see the drawn outline, just imagine where it is. It helps to use smaller pinches of wool so you can see the outline either side of the wool. 4. Lift any fibres that lie outside the outline and fold them back on themselves, felting them into place with your needle. The line of stabs that you made with your needle will hold the outline in place and create a neat edge. 5. Repeat this process to fill in the whole shape. Stab all over the wool to tack in place. This process is much quicker if you have a 7x needle holder and brush mat. 6. Repeat for the other size set of petals, cut out both sets of petals. 7. Lay the smaller set on top of the larger set at the opposite angle. 8. Take a pinch of black wool, and mix it with some of the sparkly Angelina fibres. 9. Lay it over the middle of the poppy. 10. Felt it in, going through both layers to attach them together. 11. Take a pinch of green wool. 12. Wrap the wool tightly into a ball. Hold with one hand on your felting mat, and begin to stab into it carefully, from all different angles, turning it as you work, to create a ball shape. 13. Lay the green ball on to your poppy and stab all around the edges to hold in place. Leave the middle un-felted to keep the 3D shape. You can add some tiny spots with the yellow wool. 14. Add some beads
15. To dissolve the paper, dip the poppy into water for 1 second. Check the back, after a few moments the water soluble paper should have all dissolved. Press on a towel to remove water and shape the flower, leaving to dry in that position. Sew on a brooch back if using. n