Only a few years ago most needle felting kits contained uncarded wool 'top' (often referred to as 'roving') where the fibres all lay in one direction making it much more difficult to needle felt with and unfortunately leaving many thinking they just weren't cut out for needle felting!
Some mass produced less expensive kits ON THE MARKET TODAY still only come with wool top/roving, often a poor quality merino, making it even more difficult to achieve good results. This is so frustrating to me as I know for a fact it won't be the user lacking any kind of skill required, it will just be down to the poor quality of the materials provided!
So if you have tried needle felting from a kit once before and struggled to get anything like the results shown on the box then the chances are IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S THE KIT!
Nowadays there's a wonderful array of CARDED wool specifically for needle felting. The difference is that in the carding process the fibres are opened up and brushed into different directions making it much easier for your needle to catch the fibres and felt down.
If you are anything like me and years ago bought some 'needle felting' wool and it turned out to be little packs of lovely coloured but poor quality merino tops then you can use them for adding little details to your felties or for wet felting them into pieces of felt to cut out and make little outfits ;)
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