Felting.

oh yes, I really want a tutotrial on this- needle felting to be more specific. If some-one does make a tut can you include infor about the materials and tools you need to do it. On Cat's blog she said she had needle felted a flower so Cat maybe you could do one if you have time.

Felting in general is super time consuming.

Felting is all about the fibres in the wool rubbing against one another and then locking together and weaving, compressing itself. You can do this in a coupla ways, but the ways I know best:

Needle felting - You get a felting needle, which looks like this:

and you get some wool fleece, which you can buy from loads of places on the net, and probably local craft shops too. Then you form a shape with your wool fleece and you jab at it with the needle on hundred million times until it goes into a shape you like. (It needs to be a felting needle because the needle has barbs on it which lock the fibres together)

Wet felting-
Flat-
You gotta make a soapy formula out of warm water and soap flakes in a jug, and then you gotta get a sushi roll mat (or bubble wrap works too... something that rolls up easily) and put some lace (or netting) on top of the sushi roll mat, then get a few blobs of the fleece, and overlap them slightly on the lace or netting. next you pour some of the soapy water on top of everything, then put another layer of lace on the wool, then pat everything down and rubbbbb it! Rub it all in one direction, like clockwise, especially if you've made a pattern out of different colours of fleece. rub it for ages, then after a while, lift the lace up and pinch at the felt and if it comes away dead easily then you need to rub it some more. When you are satisfied with that felting, flip over and rub that side until it passes the pinching test.

Then you gotta bathe it in some water and vinegar then leave it to dry.

by the way your house will smell of sheep. and your dog will try to eat it.

Good luck!

I thought it might have been just that, jabbing and jabbing. There is a lady that gets dog hairs and felts them together to make miniture dogs with! Can you do felting with just any wool or does it have to be wool fleece?

Thanks!

You can knit something and felt it I think- but it needs to be wool maybe.
At least that's what I've assumed- but then again you buy acrylic felt from craft stores so?


But the fleece I'm talking about is this sort of thing: http://www.knitshop.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=666

There's a project for felted beads done by Cat Morley on here, wet felted beads, which is useful to know for doing non flat wet felting.

The "felting" with an already knitted object which you may be thinking of is actually called "Fulling".
Felting is what Roma described with the needle. I have never done this but it sounds so interesting and I have seen lots of local shops selling locally made felted hats that look amazing!

Fulling is when you knit something usually with 100% wool(it works best). You knit it larger than you want it and then basically shrink it in your machine. Apparently the US open top machines work best as you can check on the object ass you shrink it.

The one thing I know about needle felting is you need to check the colours of wool you use as the colours will be pulled through. I am sure I read lots of great stuff about it on about.com in the knitting section.

ok thank you, about.com is usually pretty good

It is alright! I basically learned all my knitting skills there, they have a great library of stitches. There probably are other great places, but that's what I used

thankyou opposites and roma, super helpful, it doesn't seem as hard as I thought, now I just have to find wool fleece, is it just big fluffy balls or flat stuff you have to puff up?

i reckon you could do it on any yarn/wool

my shopping list tomorrow goes 'felting needle, crochet hook, smaller wire thingy for circular needles or double pointed needles' i may leave it till saturday cuz my boyfriend will pay, probably ;)

It's easiest to do it by hand, I did some wet felting this morning, I made a scone topped with a strawberry and some cream. photos in a bit!

I think you ought to get wool fleece- it's like um... fluffy flat stuff. I know fleece sounds like the bobbly stuff that comes off a sheep, and it is, but it's been treated.

You ought to card it out before you felt it, it works better.

<img src="http://madelinetosh.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/12/carders.jpg">

It's like brushing it.

i'd post it as a creation but my computer hates me

aaaah thats ace!!!

Roma that rocks! So yummy looking he he

hey roma, could you show a pic of the wool fleece before you, needle felt it, I still don't really get what it looks like.