How to Wet Felt

As we at Lytham St Annes Embroiderers Guild found out the other Saturday; wet felting - as opposed to needle felting by hand or with an embellishing machine - is a combination of wool, WARM water, soap and friction (AKA Rolling, rolling and rolling.... and yet more rolling) but no glue.
To make your own felt you will need :-
Merino Wool Fibres - it must BE Wool or it will not felt.

A mad scramble for the luscious coloured wool fibres. This is washed, carded and dyed Merino wool fibre. Caren gets hers online from World of Wool, Huddersfield. Wool tops cost around £3 for 100g.
Also needed is a Mat/cane roller blind found very cheaply at places such as Wilkies, Argos or Ikea or other cheap shops, 2 pieces of bubble wrap, a piece of net curtain, a soap such as Ecover, warm water (it MUST be WARM or it will not felt) and old towel to put on the table to reduce mess.

A blob of the soap, about a 1/4 inch in the bottom of a bottle with holes in the cap; along with 'hand hot' water to fill the bottle is needed to lubricate the wool fibres so that they will knit together and 'felt'.


FIRST STAGE - making a basic piece of felt from scratch.
Place an old towel on the table to make a firm base to roll on and mop up spills. 
The cane roller blind or mat goes on top of the this followed by a piece of bubble wrap placed bobbly side upward.
Now lay down the first colour of your wool fibres horizontally to make a square at least 6 inches across.
2nd colour will be laid on top of the first vertically and a 3rd colour or layer horizontally.
Now add bits for your pattern/picture, pulling and twisting them into the shapes you would like eg. flower petals, stems, leaves etc.

The curly fibres come from the Blue-faced Leicester breed of sheep though of course, these fibres have been dyed first. The fleece is actually a dark brown colour. Wool Nepps (pronounced Neeps) is the term for the bobbly white bits.
Next put your piece of net curtain on top of your fibres to hold them in place and apply the warm, soapy water mixture. 
Use your finger tips to dab down on the net to get the soap into the fibres.

Remove the net and replace it with the 2nd piece of bubble wrap and roll your bubble wrap/wool fibre/bubble wrap layer up in the blind/mat. 
Roll back and forth with firm pressure 100x
Unroll, taking care to peel off your fibres at same time; or else they will just roll back up in the mat again as you unroll it, and TURN your felt piece 90 degrees.
Remove bubble wrap and roll up again. 
Roll another 100x
Continue turning 90 degrees after each 100 roll for about another 600 rolls.
This should give you a good firm piece of handmade felt.
Wash out any soap if you like but this should not really be necessary.

2ND STAGE - using Pre-felt.
Pre-felt is a felt that can be used as a base for your felted work and is available to buy by the metre. It must be wool and not the cheaper acrylic felt found in craft shops.
No bubble wrap is needed as the Pre-felt is the base for your piece so there will be no loose fibres on your mat. It is like a blank canvas that you can add felt 'paint' to as you would on a painting.
Put down your fibres and decoration in any direction that you wish.

Add details by pulling off fine wisps of fibres, twisting and shaping to make grasses. Poppies in background are made using Wool Nepps. 
Larger poppies in the foreground can be made by rolling the wet fibres in the palm of your hand, into a ball to make a small felt bead. The black centres of the poppies can be needle-felted by hand later after the piece is felted.
Put darker green wisps over the poppies to make stems, bits of blue to represent cornflowers.

Cover with net curtain and wet with warm soapy water, agitate a little with your finger tips, remove the net and replace with a piece of bubble wrap.
Using your net curtain as a mop, rub on top of the bubble wrap.
Next remove the bubble wrap and roll up in the blind/mat and roll around 400x till it all holds firmly together.

3RD STAGE - using strips of Sari ribbon to make Cow Parsley.
Layer wool vertically up and down on top of a piece of Pre-felt, add bits of sari ribbon in varying lengths making sure to put a few fibres over the top to help them felt down ( a stage that I missed and found that my sari strips had moved in the rolling stage and turned my white nepps pink).
Now the happy bit :-) add clumps of white nepps to form the heads of the cow parsley.
Follow previous stages to wet, bind and roll until satisfied with your piece.
Sari ribbon can be found in Abakhan stores or on-line at Crafty Notions and Rainbow Silks.

4TH STAGE - making 3D Flowers.
To make a 6 petal lily - on top of a piece of bubble wrap, lay out fibres in a 6 pointed star shape, lay another colour on top of this first crossing the fibres over each other. Do the same with a 3rd colour which will be your flower centre.

Follow previous stages of net curtain and wetting, removing net, replacing with bubble wrap and rubbing over it all with your net.
Remove the bubble wrap to look at your work and refix the shape if needed. 
Using just the base bubble wrap, roll up in mat and roll 100 times, pick up with your hands, replace and re-roll, rolling for another 50 times.
Take a double pointed knitting needle and putting it into the centre of the flower and shaping the fibres around it, roll up in mat and roll again for another 100 x.
Dry your flower off on your towel and gently pull and tease out the flower petals. 
Grab the centre of the flower between your thumb and forefinger and rub in your hands to make the top of the stem.

Keep shaping and rubbing the end and the petals and pulling the petals into the shape you desire.

You should end up with a beautiful, exotic looking flower like this one.
NEEDLE PUNCHING.
Lay pieces of wool fibre onto your felt that you wish to decorate and lay this onto a piece of foam. Stab with a felting needle. Continous stabbing pushes the fibres into your picture. The same effect can be produced 'dry' using an Embellishing Machine.
Solid felted sculputures, animals and beads can be made by hand with a felting needle.
For more info on classes or to see Caren's work, click on ThrelfallArtStudio to find her website or click on Facebook page.