Needle Felted Pumpkins

Want to make some needle felted pumpkins? 

Let us help you get started!

Needle felted pumpkins are a great beginner project and we have a couple of video tutorials on how to make pumpkins. We have recently added some fun House Carded Pumpkin Batts and coordinating Dyed Sheep Curls to our website for your pumpkin felting pleasure.

This blog post is meant to help guide you to finding the right Sarafina™ wool products to make beautiful pumpkins.

If you are just starting out, try starting with our Sarafina™ Pumpkin Tutorial Video and Pumpkin Supply Pack.

Sarafina™ Pumpkin Supply Pack

In addition to the supply pack, you will need a needle felting surface like our Stabbit (that you fill with 3 pounds of uncooked rice) and needle felting needles.

Helpful tools to have if you want to do more, but aren't necessary to complete the project:

Pen Tool, Punch Tool, Sarafina™ Zullitool.

Toothpicks, bamboo skewers, pencils are always good to have on hand for wool wrapping.

See our Tools and Hardware page to shop for lots of fun tools.

Once you feel comfortable with making the basic pumpkin shape, and you want to expand your pumpkin palette, watch the Needle Felted Pumpkin Bonus Material Video and look at these next photos will help you pick out some of our coordinating batts, locks and core wool to be more successful with your project.

Links will follow below.

Sarafina™Needle Felted Sleepy Mouse among the Needle Felted Pumpkins.

Sarafina™ DeVine Curls with the Pumpkin Patch Batts

Sarafina™ Pumpkin Patch Curls with Pumpkin Patch Batts

Sarafina™ Squash Blossom Curls with Pumpkin Patch Batts

Sarafina™Twilight Tendrils Curls with Pumpkin Patch Batts

The above house carded Pumpkin Patch batts can be found in our website shop:

Shop Supplies - Fiber - House Carded

Pumpkin Patch Batts

Meteor Shower (sparkle) or Midnight (no sparkle)

Remember that the Vine Pumpkin Patch Batt makes a great pumpkin stem color!

The above Pumpkin Curl Locks can be found:

Shop Supplies - Fiber - Specialty Fibers

De Vine

Pumpkin Patch

Squash Blossom

Twilight Tendrils

Please keep in mind that the hand dyed sheep curls that you receive may vary slightly from the photos due to the nature of sheep fleeces being from individual animals, and dye variations in the dye pot, but they will in these palettes.

Next are suggested core wools that coordinate with the Sarafina™ Pumpkin Patch Batts.

You can buy most of these core wools in Sampler Packs to try them out. If you want the most for your money, consider buying the individual 2oz or 4oz balls of core wool.

Sarafina™ Pumpkin Chunky Core with the Harvest Moon Batt and Pumpkin Patch Curls

For the most uniform color and fast success, try to match a core wool with a batt or top coat color that will cover it.

If you want a challenge, try a core wool underneath that is darker or lighter for a different tone, knowing you will probably use more top coat or batt to cover the core wool.

Sarafina™ Harvest Moon Pumpkin Batt (front) with Pumpkin Chunky Core (left middle),
Copper Chunky Core (right middle), and Cinnamon Dyed Core (top).

Sarafina™ Blue Moon Pumpkin Batt (front)
with Gray Chunky Core (left) and Denim Dyed Core (right).

Sarafina™ Full Moon Pumpkin Batt (front)
with Off White Chunky (left) and Funky Chunky Core (right).

Sarafina™ Meteor Shower Batt (front)
with Brown Chunky Core (left) and Black Dyed Core (right).

And if you like to coordinate your home decor with the season, consider making pumpkins that can decorate your house through the winter with Snow Hare or Snow White (sparkle) batts.

Add any color locks that make you happy!

Sarafina™ Snow Hare (left front) and Snow White Sparkle (front right) Batts
with Off White Chunky Core (back).

We have many core wools to choose from:

Shop Supplies - Fiber - Core Wool

If you want to try the different core wools in a sampler, we suggest starting here for pumpkins:

Chunky Core Wool Sampler Pack

Browns Core Sampler Pack

Please remember too that this is just a starting point. There are so many possibilities if you want to try to make your own color palettes.

Notice the magenta pink pumpkin in the photo towards the top of this post?

We took our Berries Top Coat Sampler and blended the 4 colors together (you can use hand carders to start (watch video), but if you become addicted to blending your own colors, you may want to invest in a drum carder). Check out all of our Roving and Top Coats for colors that you can blend or use as is for your pumpkin body and stem colors.

Overwhelmed yet? Here is a quick check list to make a needle felted pumpkin:

Video Tutorial

Needle Felting Surface and Needle Felting Needles.

(Pen and Punch tools are handy).

Pumpkin Supply Pack 

OR

Core Wool for the body.

Yarn to make segments.

Top Coat or Batt for Pumpkin color.

Top Coat or Batt for Stem color.

Dyed or Natural Sheep Curls.

(Wire: pipe cleaners, fabric coated wire, Tacky Wrap Wire or Tacky Wrap Sticky Bun)

If you are making faces, have a toothpick and small bamboo skewer on hand.

Don't forget to check out the Pumpkin Tutorial Bonus Material video for more pumpkin ideas!

Have fun and show us your pumpkins on our Sarafina Felting Fanfare Facebook Group!

Needle Felting Tutorials: DVDs vs. Digital Downloads

Dvds are great and we all know how they work. Pop them into your machine and press that sideways triangle (who decided that was "play" anyway?) to get going. We are happy to make dvds for our customers and hope that you watch them again and again as you create. As we move into an ever-increasingly digital age we have also found the need to offer digital files. There are many benefits to a digital option for Sarafina tutorials. 

While a dvd is a nice option, there are a few down sides to the dvd choice.You have to pay more for a dvd than a digital download, and pay for the shipping to get it to you. You have to wait for it to arrive. Every now and then a dvd does not work. It skips, it freezes, it gets scratched or gummed up by a sticker, and refuses to play. On occasion our burning machine pops out a bum dvd and we do not know it, until you contact us to let us know your dvd is defective. Of course we are happy to ship a new one free of charge, but again you have to wait for it.

Digital downloads are cheaper and you have instant access to the material. No shipping fees, no waiting for Mr. Postman. SarafinaFiberArt.com does not have the ability to host and deliver digital media files. After a lot of research into several different options, we found Gumroad. Gumroad is a website that allows us to upload digital files and offer them for purchase.  It is kind a strange name, but give it a chance and hopefully you will see why we decided to stick with it.  Once you have made a purchase of a tutorial, you will receive an email from Gumroad confirming your purchase. You will then have the option to view the product directly from that email.

You can also log in to your Gumroad account once you have set the email and password.  When you log in to your Gumroad account you will have access to your library. The library contains any digital purchases you have made. 

Once you go to Gumroad you will see your purchases. When you click on any item in the library, you will have a few options. 

The first is to View the product. You can also save it to Dropbox, or choose to resend the receipt of the purchase to your email. If you choose to view the product, you are given the following options: 

Open the product in the Gumroad App, Download all of the files, Watch them streaming, or Download individual files. Gumroad gives you many different options, and overall the site is user friendly once you navigate around for a little while.  Like I tell my mom, if you aren't sure...just click something!  Your computer or device isn't going to explode.  I promise. 

Streaming your purchases is a simple option, which you can access by choosing “Watch” when viewing a product in your library. You need internet access for this option.  *We suggest being on a wifi network rather than using your phone's data plan.  It can drain some serious data with these monster files! You will have control over playing and pausing your digital file, similar to YouTube. This is a great option for a Felting Eweniversity purchase. These files are only available via a dvd purchase or a download. They are large files, so storing on a mobile device might be difficult. Having access to the Felting Eweniversity via streaming internet is an exciting possibility, and we are thrilled that Gumroad added this option. You can also view streaming through the free Gumroad app, available for Android and Apple devices.

It is our understanding that you are able to download the files more than once. We have tested this and it works on a windows based computer. Phones and tablets, either Apple or Android, are all different. Some allow for downloading of many files types and saving onto the device. Some do not allow that. You need to keep in mind that these video files are not small files. They are offered in an mp4 file format, which is suggested and is the most compatible file type. Many devices will not have the storage space to save all of the video files. This is where the Gumroad App becomes very useful.

The Gumroad app is available on android and apple devices. Once you get the app and log in to your account, you will have access to your library. This app is simple and user friendly. You can use the app to view your purchase streaming or to save the file to your device. Again, your ability to do this will depend on the storage and device limitations. There are so few options that you kind of can't go wrong.

We hope this blog post explains Gumroad and the digital download possibilities available to you.  I have a hankering for some Bubble Yum now.  

It's time to close out with a word from Milo:
Why did the bubble GUM cross the ROAD?   

 Artwork a Chloe Original.  Thanks, Chloe!

Written by Kyla DeStefano