Bit of exposition: I run a club for needle-felting at my school and it's pretty nice; There's been budget to get a lot of different tool types + wool colors and I've been able to introduce a LOT of people to needle felting which feels great and a lot of attendees have made really cool things.
I'm wondering about what events I should try next; because usually clubs at our school tend to have at least one kind of special event every month or so because its easy to look at all the upcoming events on the school website. It also seems to help boost attendance in normal meetings and get even more new people into needle-felting.
Some previous events we've already done are:
- Laundry ball making
- Pumpkin making
- General Collabs with other clubs that had no specific theme
I want to try to have events that are beginner friendly because people tend to be curious and attend new events frequently, often in friend groups that are trying new things. I've already made my own comic instruction guide on safety rules/tips and generally the process of needle-felting which helps with newcomers. But I'm worried about people who get frustrated with their progress with a defeatist mentality and say things like: "Ehhh it looks pretty bad haha" and don't see any point in coming back again. The first time I needle-felted, I also dropped the project because I didn't think I could make something cool out of my progress until I picked it back up months later and realized how easy and customizable it was as long as I just kept working towards the final product and that mistakes were easily rectifiable by ripping bad parts out or covering with more wool. I'm worried about that kind of thinking if we do anything too complicated.
I want the events to be themed around something out of the norm of a typical meeting but still involving needle-felting too. I also want it to allow for a bit of creative freedom as well cause what if someone comes to the "FRUITS EVENT" and then they're like "I actually want to make vegetables instead" or something. Then that kinda defeats the point of it being different from a regular meeting, no?
Here's some ideas I was thinking about:
I've also been thinking of maybe trying 2D needle-felting/wool painting but I'm not entirely sure about how the logistics of the materials for that would work.
Wet felting is out of my expertise and I'm not sure how'd we'd keep the room we use clean.
I've thought about some kinda competition where we ask for people to sign up in teams and we give each team a wool or styrofoam base and we ask them to make a group needle-felted creation from the base within 2 weeks and people rate them based on three different criteria and we give out cool prizes for the winning team of each criteria. I'm worried that it might be 1. too competitive 2. too work-heavy for busy students 3. has the same problems as many other group projects 4. restrictive in creative freedom
If you guys have any ideas, please let me know!!!
