My artwork has always been inspired by nature.

And when I found I could use the natural material of wool to create art, it just immediately clicked.

♪♪ ♪♪ Hi, I'm Megan Hammer.

I create fiber art to embrace the textures of nature.

My felted wool pieces explore the potential for collaboration and harmony between human touch and Mother Nature.

I create felted fine art, but I also love sharing the art of felting through my workshops and my DIY kits.

The process of wet felting, which is matting wool fibers together with soap, water and agitation is an ancient technique.

It is thought to be the first form of creating textiles.

In the 1800s they developed machines to make industrial felt with barbed needles punching the wool together.

And then in the 1980s, artists began using a single needle to create art with felted wool.

And that is where the modern form of needle felting was born.

Megan: I love sharing the art of felting and I hope to see you at a workshop or an event soon.

We're going to talk about 2D needle felting today and I'm going to show how to create a cute little coneflower.

To needle felt, you just need a piece of felt or fabric.

You need your wool fibers.

You need something to poke the wool into such as this needle felting mat like this or a simple piece of foam works as well too.

And then you need your needle.

Megan: So, needle felting needles are a special kind of needle that have little barbs at the end and those barbs are going to entangle the wool fibers with whatever fabric or piece of felt you're using for your background.

We have a single needle.

There are also multi-needle tools that have more than one needle to use instead of the one.

Megan: So, to get started all you need to do is place your piece of felt or fabric onto your mat, grab your wool and start poking it in.

Megan: The key to needle felting is to keep your needle vertical.

That will prevent your needle from breaking.

And you don't need to push down very hard, you don't need to push down very fast.

The barbs are just at the very, very end of the needle.

So really a light gentle poking works well.

And to use a multi-needle tool, all you do, again, keep it vertical and just poke it right down in.

Megan: One of the most fun things to do when you're needle felting is to mix colors.

To do that, stack them on top of each other and simply pull them apart until you create the blend that you need.

Megan: I always like to form my wool into the shape I need before I felt it down, it just makes it go a little quicker.

So I can form this kind of into the shape I need for the top of my coneflower and set it right on top of there and poke it in.

Megan: Another way to prevent broken needles is to make sure that your felting area is over your mat.

If you get to the very edge, you have the possibility of snapping your needle on the edge or forgetting your finger is under there and poking your finger.

Megan: So there are different types of wool you can use for needle felting.

You can actually use any type of wool or fiber.

This is wool roving and you can see that the fibers are long, they're all going in one direction.

The wool batt, the fibers are short and they're all just kind of mixed up.

Both work equally well for needle felting.

Megan: When I want to make little details, I just take a little piece, I might roll it up into either a line or a ball and then just poke my needle and you can see just that little tuft of fiber really goes a long way.

Another good way to create details is just take a small tuft and just lay it on your felt, take your needle, poke it in and twirl your needle around the wool poking back into the very same spot.

And that is a good way to make a little dot.

Megan: After you feel like your piece is complete, you can gently pull up on your felt or fabric off your mat, just gently pulling from each direction.

And it comes right off the mat and then you can look at the fuzzy background, which is super fun as well, and you're ready to frame it.

Megan: There's lots of different options for framing.

A very common one is an embroidery hoop.

I like to put some of my pieces in frames without glass so the fuzzy texture is still able to be seen.

But an embroidery hoop is a nice option.

So to do that you just remove the inside hoop from the outside hoop, set your piece down making sure it's centered, push the outside hoop down onto it, tighten it a little bit.

I like to turn mine over and push down while I pull up on the felt or fabric to make sure it's in there securely, tightening it as much as you can.

And then from there you can either trim off the edge of the felt or you can just trim off the corners and fold it over and glue it on the inside of the hoop.

This one is a nice finished example of a coneflower.

And this one has been framed with another piece of fabric and folded over and glued just to finish it off.

Megan: Thank you for joining us.

I hope that you enjoy this craft and try it out for yourself.

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