My First Needle Felted Hat

Where to start?  I got the final push to needle felt a hat when I found a website that had a "do-it-yourself" multi-felting needle holder.  My modification on what I saw and read was to put two needles through the holes in a button.  Viola!  Instant multi-needle holder!  The photo shows the needles with two buttons.  I ended up adding a third to keep the needles straighter, but it works great!  (And even better, it was free!  I have tons of buttons!--These lavender ones were a gift from my friend Jenny in Michigan many years ago!)

So, the multi-needle holder isn't the only thing I made for this hat.  I also created a foam hat form.  The cheapest I found these online was $15 from Living Felt...but I was having a hard time shelling out even that much money when I wasn't sure how I would like the process--or which size form to get!  So I made my own.  I found a tall plastic container and covered it with two layers of 1/2" foam (leftover from another project a year or more ago).  I made sure the circumference of the form was close to the desired circumference of the hat.

I had previously needle felted six 1/2 ounce batts of wool into a single unit.  I wrapped the needle felted wool around the hat form, trimmed it to size and created the top of the hat.  After a bit of felting, I took the wool off, turned the hat inside out, and felted more on the other side.  I did that a few times.

The last felting step was a wet one--I actually wet felted the needle-felted wool hat (I'm not fond of wet felting.  It seems to take forever!)  I felted the hat over another plastic container--again, one that was the right dimensions for the finished hat, and then let the hat dry. --No one in my family seemed too attached to the hat at this point.

   

But, after the hat was dry, I had my daughter try it on (technically the hat is for her.  I may borrow it from time to time!) and tested the length...way too long.  I turned up the brim, added some trim, and viola!  A needle-felted hat!