Today I’m here to talk about the last one I just mentioned. Yup, those claws that are inside those adorable little cat paws. Disclaimer: I do think this is more of a cat owner blog post, but if you do have a pup that has damaged your furniture before this may be helpful as well.

We were super bummed out and I could see that one of her claws clearly got stuck when she was scratching because it created a larger loop in the fabric. I knew not to cut any of the strings that had been pulled up because it would cause more fraying in the future. (These weren’t just broken pieces of string on the chair, they were looped snags that were pulled from a woven pattern.) I started by going to the internet where I discovered a common way to fix furniture fabric was with a felting needle. I watched a few Youtube videos and realized this was the route I was going to attempt with this chair. Which brought me to Amazon, where I found this felting needle set for $6.50.

How I used this felting needle:

Step 1: Pick the size of the needle you’d like.

I didn’t really know what size was appropriate, but I picked one that didn’t seem to have too many rough edges to it and was small enough for the fabric I had. (Amature moment here, I’m sure I could have researched more, but I just went for it.)

Step 2: Start with smaller areas of damage.

Don’t tackle the largest area of damage first. Get the hang of the tool in areas where there may just be a little fray or snag pulled.

Step 3: Start the poking!

The act of needling this was very simple. I just took the needle and pushed it down into the fabric Since there are backward-facing grooves on the needle, the act of pushing it down and pulling back up keeps the loose fabric stuck in the furniture. The strings won’t come back up when you push them down. Here is the first video on youtube that I watched.

Step 4: Pay attention to the woven pattern.

If your furniture piece has a woven pattern as mine had, and you have a large loop that was snagged, you may have to pull that fabric down a bit to loosen up the tightly pulled part. What I mean by this is, don’t just needle that large loop into the area it was pulled from. Pull up some of the other grooves along that weave to loosen them up so it looks natural again. This will also lessen the loop size you had and you can evenly disperse the areas you have to needle.

Step 5: Enjoy your fixed furniture and have some ease knowing there is a solution for some of those snags!

Let me know in the comments below if this is something new to you or if you have used anything else in the past to fix your furniture snags?