The best needle felting projects for beginners, are projects that help new felters learn simple skills and techniques.

We are the Magic Trout Imaginarium

We're a Canadian company dedicated to training teachers and artists in the art of needle felting.

To do this, we create fun, inspiring projects that draw on the magic and wonder of the world around us.  How do we know these are the best projects for beginners? We teach hundreds of private workshops, special events, conferences, and street festivals a year. We teach kids and adult of all ages.

After many years of experience and feedback, we've determined these are some of best needle felting projects for beginners. The Magic Trout Imaginarium can support you on your felting adventures-just subscribe to our youtube channel, check out our Basic Shapes Video Tutorials(coming soon!)

Another way to get started is to check out our shop where you can buy individual or bulk felting kits!

What is Needle Felting?

Needle felting is a fun, stress reliving craft that uses a sharp barbed needle to sculpt and shape wool roving into 3 dimensional shapes. Shapes can include plush food and animals, landscapes, or even masks or clothing.

The art of needle felting is a relatively new concept, despite wool its popularity for use in knitting, weaving and wet felting for centuries. The phenomenon of needle felting started with the invention of the industrial felting machine. Around this time, someone, got the idea to remove a needle from the machine and use it to sculpt 3 dimensional shapes. The sculpting is made possible by tiny barbs on the felting needle. These tiny barbs catch on the scales of the wool, which causes the wool to tangle and condense as you poke it.

If you’d like to learn more about felting supplies, we sell all the supplies you need in the Magic Trout Imaginarium’s online shop.

For more info on types of wool, felting tools, basic terminology about needle felting, check out our felting blog.

Needle Felted Sushi Roll

A Sushi roll is one of the best needle felting projects for beginners, because it uses basic rolling and shaping techniques. A sushi roll can be felted in approximately 15-30 minutes. Check out our Sushi Roll felting tutorial video here. You can also buy a Sushi Felting Kit!

 

Needle Felted Ewok from Star Wars

Photo from Handmade by November
An Ewok is a simple project that involves a simple rolling technique and shaping technique. What's great about this project, is it also involves the attaching techniques to add arms legs and ears!

Needle Felted Eyeball

 

A needle felting eyeball teaches the art of felting a sphere or ball shape, as we as adding colors to the surface of a project. This needle felting project is great for beginners. Learn how to make your own Needle Felted Eyeball here

Needle Felted Heart

A needle felted heart is a beginner project we often teach at festivals. This is a great needle felting project for beginners because it teaches shaping and attachment techniques. We hosted this activity with Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House in Feb 2020. Check out a needle felted heart tutorial here

Needle Felted Planets

The Magic Trout Imaginarium has taught felted planet workshops as part of our Intergalatic Imagination Celebration. Here, Emily shows off her planet that created with participants from the Artists in Communities Residency at Trout Lake Community Centre in Vancouver. Another idea is to use your felted planets in a felted mobile. To learn more about our felted mobile kits, check out our shop.

 

Sunny Side Up Egg

Feel free to change the color of your egg yolk to make green eggs! If you’d like to add ham to your green eggs, check out our Green Eggs and Ham felting kit!

Needle Felted Fox

This project is great for festivals such as Canada Day! We hosted an activity teaching felted forest animals in New Westminster BC on Canada Day 2016.  The greatest part of this project is you can use the same basic gumdrop shape to create a black bear, polar bear, and this fox. In this case, we added pointy ears and a tail to make the fox.

 

Needle Felted Mask

This is a fun project for Halloween, a festival or themed party. To make this project, use a store bought piece of felt as a base. Or wet felt your own sheet. Next, layer on wool to create depth. We hosted this workshop for several years at the Parade of Lost Souls, a festival organized by the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret. Check out this felting tutorial for felting a 3D Lynx mask!

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Needle Felted Zombie Brain Pin Cushion

A Zombie Pin Cushion is both fun and functional! Buy a Zombie Brain Felting Pin Cushion Kit here! Includes an instructional video

Ready to Felt?

Learn more about why wool is so awesome here.

Check out our online shop to buy classroom kits or individual kits of wool

or sign up for our online course