Easy Felt Gnome Tutorial

Felting a gnome is very easy for beginners and older children. Dry felting is very intuitive, all you need is good wool, felting needle and your imagination. I did this project with my son who is 7 years old, and my mother who is 70, it was the first time either had felted. They both made lovely individual gnomes. A fellow crafter who specialises in gnomes, told me that each time you make one, you are really not sure what it will look like, but that slowly an individual little character emerges. They may be tall, short, round, bearded or not, bushy eyebrows, and long hats. There is no right or wrong way, just enjoy making your own little creation.

You will need:

Felting wool, felting needle and felting foam pad

Making:

Using carded wool, start to shape you little gnome, wrap wool around the middle to hold it into place: image no 2.

Using your felting needle and felting pad, start to gently jab the needle repeatedly into your gnome shape, this will tangle the wool and compact it, causing it to felt. Keep repeating till your shape feels solid and strong:  image no 3.

Looking at the shape you have formed, think about where you will make the gnomes face. Using light pink or brown felting wool, place onto your shape and start to gently jab your felting needle to attach it: image no 6 & 7.

Start to shape your gnomes nose by creating a circle using your felting needle, you can lift the nose out of your gnome shape by gently pulling it up and out with your felting needle: image no 8.

Once the nose is done, get two tiny wisps of brown wool and roll between your fingers to make eyes. Place the little balls where you think your gnomes eyes should be and jab into place using your felting needle: image no 9

For the beard you can use any characterful carded or felting wool in natural shades, pull a long piece of the wool you are using and place over your gnome so that some of it goes over his head and some goes along his body. 


Start to jab your needle into your beard but only the part that is laying on your gnomes body. Once secure, you can fold the beard over to see what it will look like: image no 10 & 11

Pull a long piece of colour felting wool and wrap around your gnomes body, remembering to lift his beard up and start to felt using your needle, Keep jabbing repeatedly till it becomes firm: image no 12

Pull another long piece of wool for your gnomes hat and shape on your gnomes head to from a point, using your needle, jab repeatedly till firm: image no 14

Choose what type of hair your gnome will have and start to attach it gently jabbing you needle to attach it to you gnome head: image no 16

Your gnome is complete! Please take a photo and post on our facebook page, we love seeing felted gnomes.