How adorable is this needle-felted panda? This is a simple DIY project for all skill levels, including kids who are comfortable using a felting needle.  Of course, we also had to create some cute, little bamboo leaves out of wool blend felt for our panda pal. 

needle felted wool panda bear

Panda Pal

To get started on your needle-felted panda, check out our tools and materials list below. Starting with a 4cm wool felt ball, you can simply wrap the roving wool around and felt into place to create the egg shape of your panda body. Once the body is formed, you can sculpt it with the felting technique to add the nose and tail. With the cut shapes from black wool-blend felt it will be simple to add all of the black details to the white panda, finishing it with our special needle felting eyes and a handmade sprig of felt bamboo.

Our tutorial will walk you through each step to creating your own needle-felted panda, but be sure to reach out if you have any questions!

Tools

Optional Tools

Materials

How to Make a Needle-Felted Panda

  1. Gather your craft tools and materials. Then download the pattern below.
  2. Starting with the 4cm wool ball, wrap roving wool around and needle felt to shape an egg with the 36g needle.
  3. Continue refining and smoothing with middle 38g needle.
  4. Finish the egg shape with the finest 40g needle.

Full tutorial available for members to download below.

needle felted panda tutorial by Lia Griffith

handmade panda
needle-felted panda and mini bowls
needle-felted panda and felt bamboo

Explore More

If you enjoy this needle-felted panda with its tiny bamboo, you may also like our larger crepe paper bamboo plant. You can also explore all of our needle-felted animals for more ideas. To make the mini bowls pictured above, check out our tutorial here.