Felt can be represented on anything from vehicles to instruments, image outlines, and to make caps, coats, ornaments, pads, and binders; however, its most exciting use is probably for making dolls and sculptures. Animals are popularly made from dry felt because their fluffy fur and fur are effectively duplicated using wool. The needle felting process can turn wool into realistic looking animals, food, trees, and many other things.

When you hear felt, you immediately think of wet felt, commonly known to most people. The felt itself dates back to around 5000-4000 BC after the domestication of sheep for wool. Being the first animals to be domesticated, sheep were raised primarily for their meat, milk, and fur. However, that changed, and now they were kept for their wool, which was used to make clothes.

Needle felting was discovered in the 19th century. The first self-evidence for a needle piercing machine came in 1859. The machines were initially designed to make punches and quilts from soldiers’ haircuts, slaughterhouse fibers, and so on. Needle felting was used as an optional method to produce felt fabrics without the use of soap and water, which was the usual way.

The felt industry made felt for many uses, such as the base of carpets, car mats, and many more. The most popular felt product is that tennis ball. The tennis ball has a felt coating with specific aerodynamic properties.

In the 1980s, David and Eleanor Stanwood, who moved to Martha’s Vineyard from California, worked with felt producers from Belgium. The felt makers owned some textile mills that still processed wool on their carding machines.

The use of fleece gradually began to fade in history with the development of cotton and manufactured fiber companies. These ranchers had no idea how to handle their fleece. They originally started manipulating the fleece into blocks used for blankets and sofas, but they also tried different things with the instruments as an afterthought. David and Eleanor wanted to make lightweight wadding for quilts and bedspreads, so Eleanor bought some felt needles from the mills and used them to make felt. Being quite an innovative person, he went from quilting to making coats and scarves using the felt method.

Somehow, a Californian textile artist named Ayala Tapai came to know about these felt needles. A friend had gifted Ayala with a handful of needles and also a drill the size of a sample. The machine was from the abandoned textile industry and Ayala experimented with it in her kitchen. Through Ayala, Birgitte Krag Hansen, a Danish felt craftswoman, learned about the process. Birgitte had been making sculptural felt using the wet felt strategy. He immediately saw the prospects of employing this technique in making three-dimensional primaries.

It wasn’t long before the process spread across Scandinavia.

After that, trolls, fairies and goblins were seen all over the world, and the art began to cross the North Sea into the UK. Today, needle felting is achieving a similar fame to wet felting, with some exemplary examples in Japan.

As the world slowly began to practice this technique, some fiber artists pioneered this new craft, included it in their art, and passed the knowledge on to other artists. Many artists had previous experience working with wet felt, which was the first type of felt to be practiced. And that’s how needle felting spread around the world.