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Feltmaking For Beginners: History

The document provides instructions for beginners on the history, materials, and techniques of feltmaking. It discusses that feltmaking dates back thousands of years and was likely discovered by nomadic herdspeople. The key steps outlined are laying wool in layers at angles, sprinkling hot soapy water and pressing gently in circles to start matting the fibers, then rolling the felt to further shrink and full it. Additional techniques like needle felting to add details are also summarized. Recommended books and UK suppliers for materials are listed.

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Lorraine D Sneddon
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222 views6 pages

Feltmaking For Beginners: History

The document provides instructions for beginners on the history, materials, and techniques of feltmaking. It discusses that feltmaking dates back thousands of years and was likely discovered by nomadic herdspeople. The key steps outlined are laying wool in layers at angles, sprinkling hot soapy water and pressing gently in circles to start matting the fibers, then rolling the felt to further shrink and full it. Additional techniques like needle felting to add details are also summarized. Recommended books and UK suppliers for materials are listed.

Uploaded by

Lorraine D Sneddon
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Feltmaking for Beginners

History
The making of felt seems to go back thousands of
years to Neolithic times; probably to nomadic
herdspeople of 10,000 years ago.
There are several Folk Myths related to its discovery,
and long traditions of production from Central Asia
out to Turkey, Mongolia and the Scandinavian
countries.
It pre-dates the practices of Spinning, Weaving and
the much younger Knitting.

What you will need


Wool Tops or Batting (Merino 64’s felts very easily)
Soap (Glycerine or Olive Oil are good, but most
soaps and detergents will give results)
Container for your hot water/soap mixture
Plastic Bubblewrap
Voile Fabric (cheap screen curtaining)
Small Bamboo Blind/Rush Matting or similar
Finally - An assortment of buckets, old towels,
newspapers etc. for mopping up purposes
Why it works
Animal and Human hair has an outer layer made up
of overlapping scales.
It also has an amount of elasticity.
When the scales are raised (due to heat, moisture,
friction, PH value) they become entangled together
to form a Matted Textile.

Wet Felting - Stage One – Laying out Wool


Set up Bubblewrap with Voile on top of it.
Carefully pull out short parallel lengths of combed
tops and lay down three to five separate layers of
wool.
Each layer should be at a 90 deg. angle to the
previous one. The layers can be of different colours,
and the final layer can be purely decorative.
A second piece of Voile is then placed over the wool.
(At this stage the work can be sewn between the
Voile pieces to stop the edges spreading).
Wet Felting – Stage Two – Pre felting
Carefully sprinkle on hot soapy water, starting from
the middle and working outwards. At this point you
may or may not cover with the second piece of
Bubblewrap.
Press down gently with your fingertips to make sure
that the water evenly soaks through your work.
RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO PAT
Using your fingertips press lightly in small circular
motions gradually working your way across the
entire surface. As your work becomes less fragile you
can start to apply more pressure and use your entire
hand.
More water can be added at any time.
Gently pull back Bubblewrap, turn work over and
repeat circular motions on the reverse side.
You should now have a Half Felt.

Wet Felting – Stage Three – Shrinking/ Fulling


Rinse Half Felt in warm water and gently squeeze out
excess soap.
Place on Bamboo/Rush Mat and roll up. You can
continue to use the Bubblewrap or not. Or use a
rolling pin or dowelling……It depends on the amount
of friction required.
Roll your felt backwards and forwards 20 – 30 times.
Open up, rotate by 90 deg. and continue rolling.
Repeat this process evenly until your felt has shrunk
to your requirements.
Further fulling effects can be achieved by pouring
boiling water over your felt, rinsing in cold water,
kneading it like dough and also throwing it with force
at a hard surface.
Rinsing is important to get rid of any soap residue,
and the addition of a couple of tablespoons of white
vinegar to a final rinse will restore the wool’s PH.

Needle Felting
This is the technique of bonding fibres together using
very sharp barbed needles.
What you will need
Wool Tops etc. / Felt or other fabrics
Felting needles
Foam or Polystyrene to use as a work surface
Technique
In the case of two dimensional embellishment, fibres
are bonded to a surface or fabric by repeatedly
piercing the two with felting needles. Complex
pattern can then be built up.
More advanced technique can be used to build up
three dimensional shapes, rather like moulding with
Plasticene.
There are lots of good feltmaking books available.

Four of them are:-


How to Make Felt – Anne Belgrave
Complete Feltmaking – Gillian Harris
Uniquely Felt – Christine White
Art of the Feltmaker – Mary Burkett

Suppliers of books, equipment etc. include:-


Scottish Fibres, Damhead 0845 388 0023
Twist FibreCraft Studio, Newburgh 01337 842
843
Fibrecrafts, Guildford 01483 565 800
Texere Yarns, Bradford 01274 722 191
Wingham WoolWork, S. Yorks 01226 742 926

All are active on the Internet.

Lorraine D. Sneddon (with thanks to Anne Campbell)


Constructed Textiles Dept.
Grays School of Art 2009

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