How to Needle Felt Baby Yoda (GroGu)

You don’t need to be a Star Wars or Mandalorian fan to absolutely adore Baby Yoda (aka Grogu, or simply “The Child” for those who are super fans). I needed that cute little guy in my life, and decided he would be the best reason to try out a new craft, needle felting.

I was totally intimidated by needle felting, but dove in with both feet buying all the tools and all the felt. First-time needle felters might find the video below interesting because as a rookie myself, I picked up a few tips and tricks along the way. I also have a handy hack that will save loads of time and wool that you will need for felting. SPOILER: Use a styrofoam ball for the body base. Simple but effective!

Items you will need:

• Wool felt
• Styrofoam balls
• Wool buddy
• Felting needles

Needle Felting Baby Yoda Tips

Wrap and stab
Wrap your chosen felt around the styrofoam ball and proceed to stab all over with the felting needle. If you are doing this properly, you won’t need any glue. I intentionally used the word stab above because that is exactly what if feels like when you miss the ball and hit yourself.

I placed a wool buddy underneath to prevent marking the table below.

Baby Yoda’s ears
When you do the ears, because there is no styrofoam ball to take the needle, the felt will start to combine with the wool buddy uness you place something like a paper towel between them. To add a little extra dimension to the ears, use a secondary color on the inside.

The Cape
Use a different color felt and be sure to stab it well all over. Add a little extra where the neck will attach.  Again you can use a similar but different color on the sleeves to add a little extra dimension. Try to use about the same amount of felt for each sleeve and have them match in size.

The Eyes
Use two colors – a black and a light grey to give a little shine and iris to the eye. 

And that is it! Super easy and super cute. I did quite a few of these and it did definitely get quicker and easier as I went along. If you decide to make your own Baby Yoda, or take a dive into needle felting-after watching the video, share with me by posting it to social and tagging it with #heyitstrista.