catnip

Other, Tutorials

DIY Needle Felted Cat Toys

chezlin ·

I've had some requests to do more cat projects and I've been meaning to put together a needle felting tutorial, so I decided to combine those two ideas together. So today I'll be showing you how to make some needle felted cat toys! I made three different types, one stuffed with cat nip, one stuffed with jingly bells and one stuffed with a crinkly plastic bag. -some wool -a felting needle -a felting surface - typically people use a foam block or a bristle brush but I'm using a burlap pillow thing I made. If you're interested in learning how to make one of these, stay tuned next week and i'll show you how! -some goodies to put in the middle of the toy. These are optional.

The reason wool fibers felt together has to do with how the fibers are made up. Like human hair, wool fibers have tiny scales all over them, however, the wool fiber scales stick out way more. So when the fibers are rubbed together, whether with hot soapy water, like in wet felting, or through stabbing with a felting needle, they hook on to eachother. So whenever you felt, essentially you're creating a big ball of tangled fur. Also, you can't just use a normal needle to felt, you have to use a special needle. You can see here how it has little tiny hooks all over it and these grab the felt and pull them down, rubbing them against the rest of the wool fibers as you stab.

First, here's the cat nip stuffed toy:

Once you have the veins all attached and the leaf is felted nice and tight, you're done!

And now, the jingly bell toy:

Once it's felted tightly then you're done!

Finally, the crinkly bag stuffed toy:

And there we go, three types of needle felted cat toys!

The catnip laced toy is Gremlin's favorite.

I hope you (and your cat!) enjoyed this project! Next week I'll be doing a tutorial on how to make the felting surface, so stay tuned if you're interested!