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~

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!