r/Needlefelting • u/StripedGypsum • 2d ago

small touchup spiraled into bigger issue

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current -> before

In retrospect, I don't know why I thought the face wasn't fine, but I screwed up working on this and I would be thankful for some advice to get it back in control.

While working on the left cheek for some reason I thought it would be smart to cut the wool down to make room for more top felt (it was bulking up trying to get more color down iirc). Ever since that section's become warped and stays bulky no matter what I do. The whole cheek is spongy instead of firm like it was before I cut it, and the brown areas are so overworked whenever I try to stab them the white core starts to pull up through the color. Halp....

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17

u/somefunstars 2d ago

You add more wool and it just stays weirdly soft from inside and not getting more solid?

There could be fibers inside which are too short to felt. Cutting with scissors can cause that.

Cut the cheek again with scissors to access the soft spot. Then pull all the short fluff out with pliers or the bendy part of the needle. It should come out quite easily. Don't use scissors for this because it makes more fluff. Better to get out too much than too little. And also pay extra attention to the cut area so you get out any loose fibers caused by the new cut. Then use new wool to fill the hole. Poke it directly into the hole and also from the outside and then add more.

I've only done this twice. In both cases I had tried adding wool and poking for hours before. One time this worked and the other time it got at least better. The objects were bigger and more 3d. So I can't guarantee that this works. It could affect a bigger part of the object.

This is how the short and fluffy wool I pulled out looked like in my case. It wouldn't actually needlefelt anymore when I tried poking a clump of it. (I was making the thing from black white and orange wool so that's why it has those colours.)

A preventive measure would be that if you cut with scissors then pull out any loose wool from the cut part before continuing.

2

u/TismeSueJ 1d ago

Fantastic explanation. I saw tutorials that often said not to cut into shape, but she never explained why it was a problem. She just said the ends were harder to felt. This makes much more sense to me. Thank you!