How to Make a Needle-Felted Snowman Brooch for the Holidays

 

To needle felt this cute snowman brooch for the holidays, you'll need the following supplies:

  • 4" x 4" square of white 100% wool felt
  • small amounts of wool roving in white, light brown, black, orange, burgundy, and green
  • metal pinback jewelry component
  • snowman template (click here to download)

You'll also need the following tools:

  1. small, sharp scissors
  2. felting needle
  3. felting pad
  4. clear tape or straight pins
  5. needle and thread
  6. craft glue 

Begin by downloading and printing the template; place the snowman template on the white felt and secure it with either clear tape or straight pins before cutting it out along the outside lines. The lines for the face on the template are there to indicate position, so there's no cutting involved with the face lines.

Start at the top and work down with the needle felting. First, lay a horizontal wisp of light brown roving across the top of the hat and needle felt the top of the hat in place just enough to secure the roving. Wrap the ends around the sides and tack in place on the back with your needle; otherwise, the white sides of the felt will show. As you are making the snowman, you'll be covering the entire front and back of the hat and scarf with roving, so, at this point, felt the roving on top of the hat securely in place, making sure it wraps around to the back. Turn it over and needle felt the roving on the back. Go back and forth between the front and the back until all the roving is securely in place.

Now, add a burgundy strip of roving for the hatband and light brown roving for the brim of the hat in the same manner as you did for the crown, wrapping the roving around the sides of the felt and felting from both front and back alternately. Then cover the white face of the snowman with white roving, but just on the front. There's no need to wrap the roving on the face around the sides of the felt since both the felt and the roving are white. Also, you'll be attaching your brooch pinback to the back top part of the face section, and we want to attach it to felt, rather than a layer of roving.

After you've needle felted the white roving on the face, create the facial features with black roving for the eyes (you can substitute round black eyes for the eye lines and eyelashes, if you prefer), orange roving for the nose, and black roving for the mouth.

Finish the front by needle felting the green stripe first and then burgundy scarf, wrapping the sides and finishing the back as you did with the hat.

When you're finished the back should look something like the photo below. Note that we wrapped the roving all the way around the back for the hat and the scarf but not for the snowman's white face.

Now that you've completed the face, trim any stray strands from the back, front, and sides, and you'll be ready to make your snowman into a brooch. Of course, you could just pin it onto your garment with a safety pin or straight pin, but to make it into a true piece of fiber jewelry, use a pinback. The same technique that I use for putting a pinback on the back of a fabric flower will work with the snowman to turn it into a brooch. See my article "How to Make a Fabric Flower into a Brooch." When you glue your pinback to the back of the snowman, make sure it's centered at the very top part of the white face; do not glue your felt back onto the roving of the hat. Pictured below is the snowman brooch on a vintage green sweater coat.