This is the 5th post in my blog series; “How I started needle felting and making money with wool from my sheep.”  If you haven’t already you may want to read the previous articles in this series before this one.  These articles will help to explain how I got this far in my journey.

1. Farm Grown Artist
2. How Homeschooling helped me Create a Business Making Money with Wool from my Sheep
3. How my 7 Year old Daughter Started me on my New Hobby and Future Business
4. How Sheep Came to Reside at Bear Creek

The Woolly Women: A Source of Inspiration

In this post, I want to share how a wonderful group of sheep and wool enthusiasts became my greatest source of inspiration and support, encouraging me to pursue a fiber arts business.

Discovering the Woolly Women

We bought our first Romney sheep from Jan, who invited me and my daughter to join the next meeting of a group called the Woolly Women. She explained they were a circle of ladies who had either raised sheep or currently did, and shared a deep love for working with wool. They could also teach me how to spin, so we excitedly made plans to attend.

Our first encounter with the Woolly Women took place in the cozy basement of one of the members’ homes. There were five or six women, all immersed in various wool projects—spinning, knitting, felting. The rhythmic hum of spinning wheels blended with laughter, creating such a welcoming environment. I was fascinated by the variety of projects they were working on, and before I knew it, Julie, our hostess, had set me up at a spinning wheel and was teaching me to spin.

While I was fumbling behind the spinning wheel, Jan was busy teaching Libbie, my daughter, how to needle felt. That first meeting was an unforgettable experience. We learned so much from those women, but what I didn’t realize at the time was that this encounter would spark a profound change in my life.

The Needle Felting Spark

I didn’t own a spinning wheel at the time, so I couldn’t practice spinning once I got home. We had wool sitting, washed and ready to be transformed into something, but I found drop spindle spinning too frustrating. During our visit with the Woolly Women, Jan had helped Libbie make a Santa Claus ornament and gifted her a felting needle and a cushion to take home. 😊

That night, after Libbie went to bed, curiosity got the better of me. I picked up the felting needle and cushion, grabbed some soft wool from our sheep, and began to experiment. To my amazement, the process of needle felting was not only simple but incredibly soothing and addictive. I started forming shapes, and before I knew it, I was still felting well into the early morning hours. By sunrise, I had completed my first needle-felted sculpture: a sheep! I couldn’t wait to start on my next project.

My excitement was contagious, and soon all four of my kids became curious about this new hobby. We managed to find more needles at a craft store so we could all join in. Without an extra felting cushion, my son had a creative solution: he retrieved a couch cushion from the basement, unzipped the cover, and presented it for us to use as our felting surface. We all had a blast—until one of the boys broke a needle deep inside the cushion! After much effort, we managed to retrieve the sharp piece, but we never used that couch cushion for felting again. 🙂

A Lifelong Bond

The Woolly Women have remained my biggest inspiration and support system. We continue to gather monthly in each other’s homes, sharing skills, stories, and laughter. We also demonstrate our wool crafts at local events. Each woman is incredibly knowledgeable about wool, sheep, and all the amazing possibilities that come from this natural fiber. There are more things you can do with wool than I ever imagined before meeting them.

These women have been a huge part of my journey. They’ve watched Libbie grow up, offering encouragement in everything she does. They adore my boys, too, who have all learned to felt, spin, and knit, and enjoy spending time with these remarkable ladies.

If you have a similar group nearby, I highly encourage you to join them. While I can’t guarantee they’ll be exactly like my Woolly Women, I’m confident you’ll find the experience deeply rewarding.

In my next post in this series, I’ll share how needle felting soon took over my life, and how I began selling my first sculptures.