Felting Needle Handles

Felting Needles were not designed to be held in one's hand, they were designed to fit tightly into a felting machine and can get uncomfortable on the fingers during long periods of needle felting. There are several types of felting needle handles on the market designed to adapt these needles to better suit needle felters. You can get handles that hold from just one needle to many needles to speed the felting process. I have purchased some of these and just don't find myself using them as they don't feel comfortable in my hand, especially the single needle handles.

Here is my solution!

Needle Felted Felting Needle Handles! Now that's a mouthfull! I just love them. I actually feel pretty brilliant because this solved more than one problem.

1. They are quite comfortable to hold, especially for long periods at a time. I have worn a finger shape into the orange handle on my trusty workhorse, the 40 triangle needle. I feel it is now ergonomically correct! I gave my 38 star needle a rather slim handle because I use this needle at an angle nearly parallel to my work when I finish the surface. I use the 36 triangle needle for deep felting so I put a sturdy knob at the end so the needle can penetrate deeply. My sharp darning needle got the pink handle - this needle is used for pulling, stretching and holding shapes while I do surface work.

2. They act as shock absorbers. The repetitive jabbing of the wool is a little hard on the fingers, even though you are jabbing into soft wool, these holders do soften the blow.

3. They are now color coded so it makes spotting the right needle very quick and easy - no more holding the needles under the light to find the right one.

3. A very unexpected benefit is that these things are so easy to spot when they fall. My felting pad is a very chaotic place at times. I felt in my lap in my easy chair often and there always seem to be body parts rolling and needles dropping. Well the heads still roll and the needles still drop but boy are those once elusive needles ever easy to spot when they do fall.

I made these handles by tightly wrapping wool around the end of the needle (especially around the little "L" shape) and needling it firmly into place; adding wool and needling until I had a good shape - making certain there was plenty of wool at the end of the needle and being careful not to hit the needle in the handle with the working needle. I don't break many needles, but wouldn't you know it , I broke one right after I got the handle made. It was an easy fix, I just snipped off the end of the wool handle with scissors and slid the broken needle out, put a new needle in and firmly needled more wool into place. When I put the handle on my darning needle I had to string a bit of the wool through the eye of the needle before I wrapped it, otherwise, without an "L" shape to hold it in place, the needle would slip right out.


needle felted felting needle handles
	Felting Needles were not designed to be held in one's hand, they were designed to fit tightly into a felting machine and can get uncomfortable on the fingers during long periods of needle felting. There are several types of felting needle handles on the market designed to adapt these needles to better suit needle felters. You can get handles that hold from just one needle to many needles to speed the felting process. I have purchased some of these and just don't find myself using them as they don't feel comfortable in my hand, especially the single needle handles. Here is my solution! Needle Felted Felting Needle Handles! Now that's a mouthfull! I just love them. I actually feel pretty brilliant because this solved more than one problem. 1. They are quite comfortable to hold, especially for long periods at a time. I have worn a finger shape into the orange handle on my trusty workhorse, the 40 triangle needle. I feel it is now ergonomically correct! I gave my 38 star needle a rather slim handle because I use this needle at an angle nearly parallel to my work when I finish the surface. I use the 36 triangle needle for deep felting so I put a sturdy knob at the end so the needle can penetrate deeply. My sharp darning needle got the pink handle - this needle is used for pulling, stretching and holding shapes while I do surface work. 2. They act as shock absorbers. The repetitive jabbing of the wool is a little hard on the fingers, even though you are jabbing into soft wool, these holders do soften the blow. 3. They are now color coded so it makes spotting the right needle very quick and easy - no more holding the needles under the light to find the right one. 3. A very unexpected benefit is that these things are so easy to spot when they fall. My felting pad is a very chaotic place at times. I felt in my lap in my easy chair often and there always seem to be body parts rolling and needles dropping. Well the heads still roll and the needles still drop but boy are those once elusive needles ever easy to spot when they do fall. I made these handles by tightly wrapping wool around the end of the needle (especially around the little "L" shape) and needling it firmly into place; adding wool and needling until I had a good shape - making certain there was plenty of wool at the end of the needle and being careful not to hit the needle in the handle with the working needle. I don't break many needles, but wouldn't you know it , I broke one right after I got the handle made. It was an easy fix, I just snipped off the end of the wool handle with scissors and slid the broken needle out, put a new needle in and firmly needled more wool into place. When I put the handle on my darning needle I had to string a bit of the wool through the eye of the needle before I wrapped it, otherwise, without an "L" shape to hold it in place, the needle would slip right out. These are not a perfect solution - Stray wool fibers tend to cling to the handles and will even felt themselves into the handle. Not a big deal - if the handles get fuzzy, I just clean off the stray fibers and quickly needle the handle again. Also, If you don't needle these very tightly in the beginning, the "L" shape on the end wants to work its way out. Even though I did I pretty good job, with all of that repetitive jabbing, I still have to needle the ends from time to time.


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