Wool Felting in a Plastic Bag

So... Roc day (Distaff day, the day after epiphany) has come and gone. This is a special day for spinners, the time for the women to get back to work after the 12 days of Christmas have passed (the men get to wait until the Monday after epiphany. Hmm...). In celebration, I made a short (20 min.) video about how to make a felted woolen coaster inside a plastic zipper bag. An idea for a 'make & take project or a quickie workshop with kids or something like that. The video pretty well tells the whole story, but there may be a few things I can add here. 

~ I neglected to mention that the first layers of wool should be placed at 90 degree angles to each other. They will mesh best that way. For a third layer, I often place the wool at something like a 45 degree angle and it seems to mesh fine.

 

~ Many people say to use warm soapy water to felt. I find the warmth is not all that important. As far as soap, it should not be too frothy or the wool might just start slipping about. 

~ The blue bubble wrap I mention is some kind of industrial strength builders supply stuff, I think. You could also cut up a shipping envelope from something you received in the mail; they can be pretty sturdy.

 

~ I didn't really roll the pre-felt with a pool noodle 100 times. As it turned out, I probably only did it about 50 or so. It came together pretty quickly. And, since you want 'sticky outtie' bits of wool all around, you don't want to overfelt at that point. 

~ I mentioned that I would often use white wool when making the prefelt. The reason for that is because I feel it makes the colors on the outer design show up better and not get muddy looking. And it creates a buffer between the two outside designs too, so they won't interfere with each other.

~ The 'confetti' should really have a touch of wispy wool over it here and there just to be sure it will be well attached.

~ Don't be afraid to get a bit rough with this. It will help it felt better if it is tossed, pounded and pummeled a bit after eveything has been added.

Well, I've really got to watch the video again to see if there are other tips to add~ but in the meantime, I'm going to publish this wee blog post to make the video more 'find-able'.
Cheers~

ROC Day Felting Mini Workshop

ROC day 2018 with the Black Sheep Handspinners Guild was a wonderfully fun experience here in Lansing, NY. It had to be put off for a couple of months due to the snowy winter weather, it was shorter than expected, but we managed to cram in loads of stuff! I was responsible for a quick little intro to felting workshop~ we tossed some fun bits of wool and things on a pre-felted surface, sprayed it with soapy water, rolled it up and started the felting process. After I took it home, I went to town and got it all felted together. Here I'm going to share photos of what I did and the results. The finished piece has been entrusted to another spinner who will, hopefully, show it off at the April meeting.

Up to the left is the piece after it was wrapped in a towel around a pool noodle and rolled about 100 times in each direction, top and bottom.

On the right, you can see how the piece has shrunk more on the far end than the closer end. At this point, the far end had been rubbed between my hands a number of times, until I could see and feel the felting happening.

Here are closeups of some of the bits and pieces. You can see that the locks were having a little trouble sticking on and the silk needed a little extra wool tossed over it so it would stay down nicely. A little more rolling and rubbing was done to get these bits to stick down better.

Once that step was completed, I decided to do a bit of cutting and pre-shaping. Slits were cut all along one side, while the other side was pulled into a kind of scalloped edge. The ends were pulled and rubbed between my hands into a rather random shape.

Once it all looked like it was going to stick and I could see a little shrinkage occurring, it was time for fulling to begin. I took it to the sink, ran warm water over it, added a little soap, squeezed it out and then tossed it against my steel sink about 100 times. It was put in a bath of cold water with some vinegar added to neutralize the soap, rung out again, and then thrown another 50 times or so. Now it was really shrinking up~ hooray!

 You can see on the left how the slits expanded into larger openings and the piece of silk took on some bumpy texture as the wool around and over it shrank. Another rinse in really hot water (off the stove), some rubbing and pulling into shape, and then a final rinse in cold water and it was ready to dry out.

It was wrapped in a towel and gently mashed to get some of the water out, then put in the dryer for about 1/2 hour. As it was still a little damp, some last minute shaping was done and then it was hung to finish drying.

On the right is the finished piece with the side we were working on at ROC day up.

To the left is the back side of the piece- see how easy it is to make it reversible?

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Making Felted Woolen Purses on the Inside

Well, for the fiber fans in the crowd, I wanted to pop in and talk just a little bit about making felted fiber purses. A purse was among the first things I was inspired to make with felt. After a quick lesson in making batts, I came home and thought- well, that looks like it would make a nice purse~ so I did!

One part of the instructions I modified right away to make the whole thing around a resist and then cut the resist out. I made a resist only for the 'business half' of the purse and made the flap sticking up from that on its own.  Once it was pre-felted, the top of the front opening was folded under a little so that it would not stick to the back half of the purse. It is probably not quite as even as a cut would be, but I enjoy the organic look and find the felt edge can usually be pulled into shape while wet so it is fairly even.

After the purse was finished, I painstakingly lined it by hand as I have no sewing machine. That was WAY too much work, in my opinion. In the next phase, I simply felted things down a bit more and made sure the purses were sturdy enough not to need a lining at all. But then I thought wee fibers might get into things. I admit that I don't wear lipstick, but I imagine it is not where one would like their fiber to end up.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an inspiration - why not nuno the inside with some fabric I had lying about? Then there'd be a mostly fabric inside without all the trouble of hand lining it~ to my shock, this actually worked! At first, I made the fabric into nuno pre-felt, let it dry and cut it to shape, leaving some room along the seams so the fibers could felt together nice and strongly. After doing it this way a couple of times, I tried it without making the nuno pre-felt~ just adding a cut piece of fabric to the inside~ which also worked, but the fabric did want to slide around a bit.

To make the nuno prefelt, simply take a piece of loosely woven fabric, add a thin layer of fiber, get it a little wet and soapy and roll about 300 times, just until it's all stuck together and the fibers are poking through the fabric a little. Let it dry flat and cut it to the size and shape needed. The fabric part should go to the inside of the purse, with the fiber side up so that when new fibers are added they will all mesh together well.

That's it for now!

Making a Wet Felted 'Tulip' Bowl, A Quick Tutorial

Well, weeks ago I promised to write down directions for making this type of wet felted bowl. So, finally, here we go. I'm not going to give you detailed instructions for basic wet felting here- hopefully you've got that bit down. I refer to these as 'liriodendron' bowls, named after the tulip tree or yellow poplar.

This bowl began with a couple of layers of white wool, placed perpendicularly to each other for the base. Wool was added on each side in some pretty contrasting colors. Four layers of wool were used; more would make it even sturdier. Since both colors would be seen on the finished piece, I wanted something a bit showy~ the colors are so nice and vivid when wet! Colors were added to one side, some warm water and natural dish soap was sprayed on, then it was covered with plastic and rolled flat with a pool noodle until it was sticking together well. Then it was flipped over and colors were added to the second side, another quick roll with the noodle, and then it was all wrapped around the pool noodle with a towel around it and rolled about 100 times in each direction (Roll 100 times, unwrap, turn 90 degrees, wrap up, roll again, etc. Then flip over and do it all again). At this point things should be holding together pretty well.

When everything looks as if it is felting together and shrinking has begun, it's time to shrink it the rest of the way. This is done in different ways by different people. Here the piece was first rubbed all over and the edges were kind of rolled and rubbed to be sure they were fairly straight and well attached, then it was rinsed in very warm water, rung out and tossed against the bottom of the sink  100-150 times.
It was then rinsed in cold water with vinegar to neutralize the soap, then really hot water and then once more in really cold water. This shrinks things up a bit more.

While still wet, the corners were sewn to shape the bowl. The orange and pink side is meant to be the inside of this bowl, so the seam was sewn with that side out. Seems the inside of the bowl is what will be seen most most often, so it was bright side in! This will be flipped after sewing, but for a different look, it could be left with the sewn bits sticking out.

So here it is before the flip and after. With the corners to the inside, it kind of reminds me of a tulip.

The final step is to steam the bowl into shape. A heavy pottery bowl was placed inside this bowl to shape and weigh it down, then it was placed in a strainer over a bowl of steaming water, covered and allowed to steam for a couple of hours. After drying for a couple of days, it was ready to show off!


The idea for this type of bowl came from Lark Books '500 Felted Objects'. Sadly, I don't own this book so cannot tell you the artisan's name.

Making a Felted Bowl

Finito!

Well, there are not photos of many of the steps taken to make this felted bowl, but let's see if I can explain how it all happened.

A few things gathered for use

*  Lay down a piece of plastic (like a bit of drop cloth) that is large enough to wrap completely around the finished piece.

*  Cut a piece of flexible plastic stuff to act as a resist between the two sides and to build the pieces on. This was built flat and shaped into a bowl later.

* Add wool layers to the first side.
       Begin with two layers of white for the background. This helps colors that will be added onto the final surface to pop.
       A couple of wide lines of color that would contrast nicely with the final surface were added.  (A piece of thin foam will be placed over those areas to keep them from felting to the outer surface~ a cut will be made through one layer to the next later.)
       This was all wet down, soaped and prefelted and then flipped to the other side before the final surface colors were added so that the under colors and finished design could be carried from one side to the other more effectively.

The first layer and bit of the other side

* Flip over, wrap the edges of the wool around the resist and then repeat the same process on the other side of the resist- 2 layers of white, some contrasting color and prefelt. Finish this side out by covering the contrasting color bits with a flexible resist, then add the final layer of color.

* Back to the first side to add the final layer, covering the inside colors with flexible foam and then adding the final layer of colors, trying to somewhat match up the colors from one side to the next. The decision about which side would be the top of the bowl would be made later.
         These layers were then soaped, wet down and lightly prefelted (covered in plastic and rolled flat with a pool noodle) before the final layer of colors was added. I found in a subsequent bowl that four layers of wool on each side creates a nice, thick, sturdy bowl.
         Add the final layer of colors and a little 'confetti'- random bits of stuff!

The second side

* Wet down everything by spraying with soapy   water and lightly felt by wrapping in plastic and rolling flat with the pool noodle about 50 times, covering the entire surface.

* Once all the colors are added, it's time to felt! Wrap everything carefully in plastic, keeping out wrinkles, and roll around a pool noodle, then roll a towel around the whole thing (you can also roll the towel up with the bowl for more felting friction; just be sure it will wrap all around the outside at the end).

Ready to felt!

* Felt by wrapping completely in plastic and a towel and then wrapping the whole mess around a pool noodle and rolling about 100 times in each direction. i.e. roll 100 times, unwrap, turn, wrap and roll, repeat until it has been rolled in every direction- NSEW, and then flipped and rolled all four directions again.

* Check the felting progress as you go. When the felt is pulling on the resist, it's time to remove it. Cut a small hole (about 1 inch in diameter) out of the top center. Rub around the hole to expand and strengthen it, then carefully pull (manhandle) the resist out.

* Continue felting until everything is getting nice and firm. This can be done by wrapping and rolling for a bit longer. A piece of thin plastic (like a bag) can be placed inside just to ensure that things don't stick together where they should not. Cut carefully through the upper layer and remove the mini resists before finishing and fulling.

* Begin shaping into a bowl shape by felting with one hand on the inside. Finish the felting process in your usual manner. This was rinsed in cold water, then really hot water, then thrown down in the sink about 100 times, then rinsed in cold water with vinegar to remove all the soap, then really hot water, then cold again until it felt really well felted.

A different bowl

* Put a plastic bag inside and stuff hard with newspaper, shaping the bowl as you go. Make a few ridges and clamp with clothespins or binder clips. Take this whole conglomeration and steam over boiling water for an hour or so.

* Leave the newspaper inside and clothespins on while the bowl begins to dry. Once it is mostly dry (overnight or longer), remove everything and let it finish the drying process.

Whew! That's a lot of instructions! Hope I didn't miss anything essential.