Giant Felt Flower
These amazing Giant Felt Flowers are great decorations and so super easy to do - you can make one in no time!
Per Giant Felt Flower, you will need:
- dyed wool batts of your choice
- 5 pieces of 15x15cm Viscose/Wool Felt Sheets in any colours
- your choice of Space Dyed wool tops and Fairy Mix batts
- Angelina Fibre or Sparkly Stuff Synthetic Fibre
- Hand-dyed Teeswater curls or dyed Leicester curls
- Felting needle (#38 medium)
- Optional for speedy felting: 7-Needle Multi Tool and Brush Mat
You will also need scissors, a darning needle and strong cotton thread (such as embroidery silks or thin crochet yarn).
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The fun in making the flowers is choosing colours from the space dyed wool tops. You can use just one type or mix two. It works so well with the space dyed tops because the colours run gently from one to the other. The Fairy Mix is a great one too as it adds little white silk spots and has bright and amazing colours in it. Important in making these flower is that you keep the colours bright! |
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Cut your felt sheet into 5 individual pieces measuring 15x15cm square. This way one of our 30 x 45 cm Felt sheets will make one flower! You can also make them more rectangular if you wish. |
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Then use your scissors and cut 2 or 3 sheets at the same time as follows: round the top off, then cut the corners at the bottom on each side. It really does not need to be so precise even if one petal is slightly smaller you will not be able to notice this later. However, if the thought of cutting free hand worries you, draw a template first, cut out and and transfer the outline onto the felt, |
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Make sure that each petal has a fairly neat and rounded outer line. I quite like the imperfection as flowers in nature have them too! |
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Next tear thin wispy lengths from your chosen space dyed wool tops. I have used Cornish Seaside at the bottom, with the green/blue running into purple and Berries and even Flower Garden with a little orange in there to continue at the top with the purple running into the pink). To keep costs low you could just use one kind and make best use of the colours. At the very bottom I added a little Fairy Mix and picked the green with silk dots out of it. It is great fun designing this and as long as you keep the fibres running in a delicate cover along the petal and keeping the colours running into each other rather than creating a stark line you can do your own designs! |
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Next use your 7-needle felting tool and brush mat and felt the wool down straight through the felt petal. The wool that you have layered onto the felt will not slip off easily so you can work your way along the petal by stabbing the multi tool in. Work in a larger area to start with to fasten the fibres down, then go over it in more concentrated smaller patches. |
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The petal with the felted down wool tops should look like this now. Keep away from the very edge of the felt petal so you don't have a hairy edge. |
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It is entirely optional if you want to add more, even introducing a new colour into it like I did here with the blue. If this is your first flower skip this step and go to the next one. If you are adding another colour just felt it down as before but bear in mind that the colours still need to be fluid and complementary. |
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The back of the petal should look like this with the fibres punched through. |
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Make a total of 5 petals always following the same colour theme and order of wool tops. If you have a slight variation or perhaps one colour looks more dominant in one petal than in another it will not matter. If you look at flowers in real life each petal is as unique as the flower itself. |
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When you have coloured in 5 petals use your darning needle and thread your cotton into it. Then do a running stitch at the flat bottom of the petal making sure that your running thread always goes in from the back of the petal and also ends at the back of it. |
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This will be the same with all of them |
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When all of them are 'strung' up take the needle out and pull tight. |
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Turn the flower over and tie a knot with the cotton thread or yarn pulled tight. Make sure the knot is secure. Leave the cotton yarn so you can decide later if the flowers will be tied or sewn onto something. |
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Adjust the petals at the front so they are all visible equally. |
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Next take a handful of the wool you want to feature in the centre of the flower. I have used NZ Merino in golden yellow and Angeline Fibre in Fuchsia pink Mix the two fibres by tearing them apart repeatedly. If you do not know how to mix fibres see our free tutorial here |
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If you wish you can add another type of wool into it as I did here with adding pink from the Berries space dyed top. Mix as before. |
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Then lay the unfelted mix on top of the flower center and.... |
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...only stabbing into the sides with your felting needle fastening the wool into the petals. Be careful not to break your needle as you may have to stab through more than one layers of felt. Keep going around the whole of the base. |
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Then stab the needle into the shape itself to felt down a little but do not flatten it. You can make a slight indentation into the middle. |
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If you wish you can add details by felting short lengths of curls into the side of the yellow middle and running along each one of the five petals. This is optional. I have used hand dyed Teeswater curls Mermaid here. |
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