Embellishing Felted Wool Art with Stitches

Although I love the texture of felted wool art, I find that adding some simple stitches can really elevate my work. I regularly use a selection of simple stitches to add the impression of flowers, pebbles or shells. Take a look at how I have used straight stitches, lazy daisy stitches and french knots in these coastal scenes to embellish the foreground with an array of flowers.

hand-stitched flowers added to a needle felted coastal scene.

close up of french knots, lazy daisy and straight stitches added to felted wool art.

Embroidery can also help when building up the depth of field in my work and I often add stitching amongst the thicker textures in the foreground of my work to represent flowers that are closer up, for example in this bluebell woodlands scene. I have used lazy daisy stitches to create bluebells in the foreground to complement the felted patches of blue in the middle distance. I sometimes take this a step further and add beads too.

A needle felted bluebells scene is enhanced with texture and hand stitching in the foreground.

Stitches also allow me to really finesse a piece of needle felted artwork. Although felted wool can be really versatile, sometimes the 'lumpy' texture of felted elements needs a little help to look really professional. Take a look at these two pictures of one of my felted flower vase pieces. Whilst the simple felted piece looks pretty, I feel that adding stitches to the picture gave me the opportunity to represent more delecate flowers and to fill in some of the empty spaces.

Felted flower vase picture before adding embroidery stitches.

Felted flower vase picture after adding embroidery stitches.

I hope this blog has given you a useful insight into how I combine embroidery with felted wool art. Take a look at work in my gallery to see more pieces like these. If you fancy learning how to use simple stitches with needle felting, why not join me on a workshop!