Making An owl:
For the owl, we will start by making a white cylinder. Break off a length of white wool about the length of your hand.
Roll it between your hands as you would roll a ball of playdough into a snake.
Once the wool is in the snake shape/ cylinder shape you can start stabbing it with the large felting needle.
Be slow and deliberate with your stabbing in the beginning, and concentrate, working to compact the wool into a tight cylinder
You will soon see that this stabbing holds the wool in place and your snake will not unravel if you let it go, but it will get more compact. You may need to add new pieces of wool to your cylinder if it gets out of the rounded cylinder shape. When you are happy with your cylinder and it is fairly compacted and firm, we will start on the face.
Next, Take some of the grey/brown wool and separate out about a pencil width . Roll this with your fingers into a rope, twisting it and pulling slightly so it gets thinner but stays together in a rope.
On the white cylinder, choose where the face will go, and make half a heart, use the large felting needle to tack the heart in place (felt it down, but you do not need to totally felt it in place yet. Make the second side of the heart, and also tack that down. If you are happy, you can completely felt the heart onto the cylinder. If not, this is the time to pull it off and readjust, or start over.
Now, the head and wings, Take the same grey/brown and get enough wool to cover the head, and down the back of the owl to the bottom of the cylinder, start to felt that on from top of the head to the bottom. You can add more wool if you have any bare spots and fill in. Cover the entire top and back of the head, as well as the entire back of the owl.
To make the spots on the chest, take little pencil eraser sized pieces of wool, and roll them in the palms of your hands to slightly felt them. When they are holding together on their own, carefully felt them onto the owls chest. Some of my smaller ones got lost inside the owl, so there needs to be a balance between too big and too small.
Now, using the grey brown, or black wool, roll a slight larger than a pencil eraser ball (you will need 2) in your hands for the eyes. Put these where they fit best, and felt carefully, then add a white dot for the pupil.
Using some white or light grey, pull out a pencil sized amount like you did for the face and make a rope, pulling and twisting the fiber so it stay together. This is going to be the wings on the back. Felt those into place.
That is it for the design, now you can add in any additional embellishment, add a ribbon for a hanger if this an ornament and you can use the smaller needles to help finish up any spots that seem to have large holes from the felting needle.
As you go, use your fingers to smooth out those holes as well and you will see the wool smooth out and start to look like a professional made it.
.