Needle Felting with Middle School?

I saw a cool needle felted animal project last year and I wanted to try it so I bought all the stuff to teach it over the summer... and I thought... how hard could it be? So I tried to do the project myself over the summer and IT IS DIFFICULT! I kept poking myself with the needle and it wasnt coming out right and eventually I got frustrated and just gave up. If I'm feeling that way, there's no way I could teach this to middle school students lol. But it looks so cool online seeing other teachers do it.

So... any middle school art teachers out there who wanna share some good resources on needle felting? Project Ideas? Anything. Thanks!