Recipe for felt
In wet felting process you create felt rubbing wool fibers with your own hands. First, wool needs to be spread on a flat surface layered with something textured, e.g. with bamboo mat or bubble wrap. Then, you need to pour it over with warm soapy water. It softens fibers and opens numerous tiny hooks on them. Finally, you need to cover your workspace with another textured layer (it may be the same one that you used before) 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 or stretching. At the end, when everything looks just like you wanted, you need to rinse felted item in a cold water.
Seems easy? In fact, it is! Wet felting is not complicated, thought it is laborious. Simple felted decorations can be made by anyone, even by a child or the least gifted person. The process becomes more difficult, when you design and make more complex or three-dimensional items. It is also a bit more difficult when you combine wool with other materials, e.g. silk fabric in nuno felting technique.
