Needle Felting is a relatively new craft . Although it is easy and fun to do, crafters are just beginning to see the potential both for 3d sculpture and embellishment of garments and accessories. In marketing my needle felting wool packs I find that many knitting stores may carry some needle felting tools, but not a lot. Some of the knit shop owners are offering classes, but many do not and this limits their potential felting customers.

I have taught a few classes based on my own patterns and find that the students love the class, both for the fun project, but also the conversation and connection with other crafters. Each student puts their own twist on a project and it is lots of fun to see the different end results.

How do I market my needle felting wool packs? Cold calls to knit stores. When my daughter was in the high school band, I volunteered in the band booster program and was in charge of an auction fundraiser. In order to get donations and sell tickets, I made hundreds of phone calls to businesses and people in the community. This experience was great practice for me and now I feel very comfortable cold calling fiber stores and describing my products to them.

I find it interesting those activities we do in life, even though seemingly very unrelated, can cross over and give us skills or opportunities we didn’t even know we needed. So when your kids come home from school complaining about “why should I learn the stuff in this class, I will never use it again”, tell them not to be so sure about that!

The photos are of needle felted items I have made. For some I have written the patterns, others I just made up as I went along and haven't made again. Writing patterns requires quite a bit of experimentation and repetition.