Breaking your felting needles? Here’s how to avoid it.
From stabbing too deeply to bending the felting needle, the 3 most common felting mistakes- and how to avoid them.
Amazing graphic from Japanese “how to felt” instructions.
Felting needles break occasionally, that’s totally normal! But if you’re breaking needles often, it’s a sign that something is off with your felting technique.
Three mistakes people make that lead to broken needles.
Bending the felting needle. At no point during felting should your needle bend or flex. The felting needle is very brittle steel and will break if flexed. Make sure you’re stabbing straight in and straight out.
Stabbing very deeply into your felt. If you look at the tip of your felting needle with a magnifying glass, you’ll see that the barbs are only 1/2” - 3/4” inch from the end. That’s the only part of the needle that does the felting! At times it can be useful to felt deeply, but most of the time you’ll be achieve the same results by stabbing very very shallowly. People frequently break their needles when they stab very deeply into dense felt and the tip of the needle gets twisted inside.
Stabbing with too much force. Stabbing gently moves the same amount of fibers as stabbing with a lot of force. Often a needle will snap when it goes into the fiber a little sideways at a high speed. Pretend you’re going to stab your finger occasionally when you’re felting to moderate your power stabs. If you felt gently, you’ll break needles less often, and bleed less (you’re welcome!).