oh my jesus I so badly need to learn how to needlefelt...

Do it! It's fun! :D Just don't bleed on your sculptures and you'll do great! ;P

Like... I just have no idea how to get started. ):

I have a text file I send to people who are interested in felting and want some info. :D

Here's what I'd recommend to get started felting: The most important tool would be a good felting needle. I haven't seen the better needles or good wool in craft stores, so you'll have to go to a specialty store or order online. I got some needles from Michael's because they were cheap, but they don't have very many barbs so I don't generally use them now. "Star" needles are my favorite, because they have more sides and more barbs to catch the wool. You don't really need multiple sizes to get started, but you might get at least one spare needle. They do break sometimes. (I'm special, I hit my wire armatures all the time with no problem, but I've broken all sizes of needles on eye details, and a dryer ball.)

For wool, try to get "batt" or "batting." The hairs are mixed up so they felt more quickly, and they're also more coarse in size. (Generally, the finer the fiber the more time it takes to felt) Here's a video that explains the different processing levels, I found it helpful. It does simplify a bit, though. For instance, the actual difference between sliver and top is that top is combed rather than carded, but it's not important to know that in the beginning. ;) You can get "core wool" cheaply, this is batt that isn't processed much and felts really easily. It's cheap because it's undyed, and too coarse for other fiber crafts. It hasn't been carded very much so it still has little bits of grass in it. It is washed though, so it's clean. You can also get colored wool in batt form, if you don't want to make a core first. I found it easier to start out with dyed batts without making a core for my shape, but that's because I have a hard time envisioning how to shape something out of two different materials. (I can't sculpt clay around a foil armature for that reason) After I made a few things, I started using the core wool. Roving, sliver, and top will felt pretty well too, but not as easily as batt so I prefer to leave those for the "top coat" only. They stick to the batt core easily, but not so well to themselves. Stay away from synthetics at first, they usually take more effort to felt. If I had tried to felt poly-fil first, like some people do, I would have gotten frustrated and given up because it takes so long. :P Wool is the most common fiber available, but any animal fiber will felt, as will silk. (Fun fact: The luxury fiber chiengora is the undercoat of double coated dogs!) Alpaca and angora (as in the rabbit breed, not the goat. Angora goats produce "mohair.") are fairly common as well, though a bit more expensive. Expect to pay around $2.50 per ounce of high quality carded or combed fiber from sheep, with other animals being more.

I got my first good materials from Living Felt. They have a nice selection and good prices. They even have kits for making bears and stuff, and a starter kit.

I've also gotten some really nice wool from New England Felting Supply. I got some of their superfine merino batt, and core wool ("People's Wool"). The short fiber merino is much softer than the top I got from Living Felt because it's finer, and the core wool was cleaner.

Paradise Fibers sells a lot of interesting, less common fibers, like pure angora and bamboo. I haven't ordered from them yet, but they have an excellent price on angora top that I want.

You can also get good deals on supplies from Etsy. That's where I got my alpaca and bamboo.

As for technique, I learned mostly by doing. There are tons of free tutorials online though, including on dA. The one that got me to actually try felting was this one, because it's so small and simple: How to make Mr. Turtle The only book I have is Needle Felting: To The Point which is a great resource and was helpful to me when I got confused by a few things. She also has another book, but I haven't gotten it yet. This video was also helpful to me, it shows making simple figures with armatures. Sometimes video is better than stills! ;)

I would SO buy one of these! You need to find a factory in china...No! Bad idea! Uh.. starving students? to make more. Oh, stories are now readable. Tygrahof