How To Make A Needle Felt Mermaid

Needlefelt Whale and Mermaid

I am pushing my luck writing a tutorial on this being as I am new to all things needlefelt.

The materials I used are as follows (all bought from Amazon)

Layers of felt in shades of pink and purple.
A small needle felt kit
Pipe cleaners
Finger protectors

For my mermaid, I bought a bundle of felt in shades of purple, pink and mauve as shown here. This was a good value bundle and I have tons left over for future projects.

I used light pink for the face, deep purple for the mermaid's hair and a light mauve for her body. As my first needle-felt project I decided keep things simple.

This was a very inexpensive and cheap felt needle kit. I just chose a needle at random and used the same one for my entire project as I honestly have no idea what the different sizes relate to! I hope to learn more with subsequent projects.

I used a memory foam cushion to use as a base for the needle felting but I still managed to stab myself a fair few times. I would as such recommend a finger protector!

Let's get started!

If this is your first time needle felting (as it was mine) you will find this wiki tutorial video helpful to learn the basic skills. This tutorial will show you how to prepare the felt wool, matt it together, create shapes and more. You use the needle to push the felt into a specific shape and then by jabbing it you fix it in that shape. You can also use this method to fix extra layers and accents. This technique replaces the need for sewing and glue!

In the tutorial you will be shown how to create a ball which you will need as the first part of creating your mermaid involves shaping her head.

Before you do this prepare your mermaid skeleton. Take a pipe cleaner, fold it in half and then create a loop for the head by twisting 2cm down. Add your felt that you will then work into a solid ball around the pipe cleaner for the mermaid's head. This method will ensure that later your mermaid's head is properly fixed and will not fall off!

When you have your mermaid head you can add her hair. You can create a plait with your felt and then add that readymade to the head. Using the jabbing needle action you fix the hair onto your mermaid's head.

To create the mermaid arms I wrapped thin wisps of felt wool around and around until the pipe cleaner arms were completely covered.

The mermaid body was a much larger piece of felt, jabbed for stability on both sides and tied at the base of the tail. I used the needle to add form to the tail. The pipe cleaner inside the body enabled me to position my mermaid once she was completed in the seated position you see here in the picture.

I may later add some embellishments to jazz her up a bit! If you want to have a go at creating your own needle felt mermaid, please share some pics! Amazon have some needlefelting kits for making mermaids and mermaid ocean scenes. Check them out below.