Wet felting

Recipe for felt

Felt is made by hands by rubbing the wool fibers in wet felting process. First of all, wool needs to be spread on a flat surface in a desired shape. Then you pour it over with warm soapy water, which softens the fibers and opens numerous tiny hooks on their surface. Finally, you need to cover your workspace with bubble wrap (bubbled side touching wool) and rub it with your hands.

After some time (depending on what you are felting) you get a piece of woolen material called felt. Now you can improve its shape by kneading, rubbing, rolling and sometimes even cutting and stretching. At the end you need to rinse felted item in a cold water so that the hooks on the wool fibers wedged against each other.

Seems easy? In fact, it is! Wet felting is not complicated, thought it is laborious. Simple felt decorations can be made by anyone, even by a child or the least gifted person. The difficulties begin, when it comes to design and make something more complex, three-dimensional or to combine wool with other materials, like silk fabric in nuno felting process.