Felt Appliqué: Beginners Guide

Hi Creative Mamas! I am so keen to show you how easy and quick it is to make super fun flower felt appliqué by using felted wool. This is your felt applique beginners guide!

For this tutorial I will be using the hand felted wool fabric that I have created using wet felting technique. Wet felting is super fun and easy to make!

felt applique tutorial

How do you applique wool felt?

You can use any felted fabric but I absolutely love making my own wool felt. It allows me to combine different colors of wool roving and to design the fabric and the flower as well.

There are many ways to felt and I have written a post with reviews to the best felting books that you can read to get you started with a wide variety of techniques.

wool roving in different colors

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Choosing Wool felt

When choosing your wool felt to work with there are a few things to consider such as the composition of the felt, the width and the color.

Here are the types of wool felt:

  • Craft felt which is manmade (synthetic fibers) and it comes in assorted colors, shapes and weights.
  • Wool blends felt (this one is merino and rayon blend) which will have a softer texture and will be nicer to handle.
  • Wool felt (this one is homespun) and I always go for this kind of felt.
  • Handmade felt. I like making my own felt and you can learn how to do it too 🙂

This tutorial was made by using handmade wet felt in a variety of colors.

The light blue felt was created by combining blue, white and orange wool roving and the green felted fabric was created by combining bright green roving with uncarded wool from a friend’s farm.

The yellow wool roving in the picture below was hand dyed using the solar dyeing method.

wool roving and wet felted wool  fabric

Felt appliqué flowers tutorial

Materials and equipment

Felt applique patterns

Choose your applique patterns. For this tutorial I am embroidering flower petals.

You can download your FREE Flower template (available in my FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY— get the password for free by filling out the form below)

Step 1: Fabric for applique

Decide which felt you will use for the applique. Make sure that you love the colors and that the thickness is right (not too thin and not to thick).

 wet felted wool  fabric
wet felted wool  fabric and embroidery threads.

Grab your fabric scissors and your embroidery threads. i like to combine the embroidery thread color with the felt color.

Choose a contrasting background color fabric. You can applique on any fabric but I have chosen a nice wool tailoring fabric as my background.

wet felted wool  fabric and embroidery threads.

Step 2: Cut the applique patterns

Cut the felt petals by first cutting the paper template and pinning it to the felt. Then, cut around the template on the fabric.

Place the felt pieces on the background fabric and start stitching them in place by choosing your favorite embroidery stitch.

Step 3: How do you applique felt onto fabric?

Pin the flower petals to the background fabric. You can start sewing the flower petals to the fabric.

Felt applique stitches

These are my favorite embroidery stitches to use:

  • Whipstitch
  • Running stitch
  • Back stitch
  • French knots
  • Blanket stitch
applying felt flowers using embroidery stitches tutorial

I am using a whipstitch and French knots embroidery stitches for my flower.

applying felt flowers using embroidery stitches tutorial

You can simply sew around the flower or you can fully embellish it by adding more layers of embroidery to the felt applique.

applying felt flowers using embroidery stitches tutorial

You can also add a stem piece to the flower but make sure that you sew it first so that it’s covered by the petals.

applying felt flowers using embroidery stitches tutorial

Make as many flower appliques as you wish by combining different felt colors and different embroidery threads.

applying felt flowers using embroidery stitches tutorial

Here are my final felted flower appliques.

applying felt flowers using embroidery stitches tutorial

You can now choose to transform them into patches or use them as applique to upcycle a garment, make it part of your fabric collage fabric journals or even frame it and use it as artwork.

felt applique flower and wool roving

felt applique flower, wool roving and an embroidered patch.

Felt applique kits

If you prefer not to do the wool felt yourself, you can get a felt applique kit. These are a great way to get everything you need in onw stop shop kind of thing and I love these kist for Christmas.

Can you wash felt applique?

Yes! you can totally wash your appliques but always use cold water and make sure that you hand wash.

Save this tutorial to your favorite Pinterest Board

felt applique flower and wool roving

You can attach any felt applique to crochet. My favorite thing to do is to attach them to fabric.

These appliques are a great way to upcycle old clothes such as jeans, skirts and jackets. You can use the felt patterns provided in this tutorial but you can also create your own.

The sky is the limit and I would love to see how your felt appliques look. Be sure to send me a pic!

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