another way to get the needle turned look without doing it by hand is to use interfacing (not the fusible kind) and stitch the shapes together with water soluble thread.
snip a hole in the interfacing and turn out and now iron with hot steam. it will dissolve the water soluble thread and you can then remove the interfacing.
i use this method when i'm doing many of the same shape because you can keep using the same interfacing shape.