How does felting wool work

For this reason, the fiber slides smoothly in the direction of the hair root. Moisture is indispensable for the felting process. If the wool is wet, the epidermis supplements are spread apart from the fiber, like little barbs. A little moisture is enough for this reaction. Too much water is not only bad for your workplace, but it can also prevent the felting process because it is difficult or even impossible for the fibers to connect with each other — they then tend to just swim side by side.

The felting process is accelerated by heat. The hat industry even uses hot steam for this reason. I used to just cup my hands full of hot water and try to sprinkle it onto the wool until I found these awesome bulbs. When an alkaline medium is added to the moisture and heat, the epidermal scales spread even better.

For this reason, soap is added to the hot water — about one tablespoon per liter of water. Several felters I know prefer dissolving soap flakes available in our shop in hot water, making a soapy solution instead of working with a bar of soap. If you are like me, and prefer the bar of soap to rub your hands on when needed, to better control the amount of soap used during the wet felting process, then you might want to look at our g bar of soap , made by the same company. When felting per hand, soap also serves as an indispensable lubricant.

Especially when form felting 3D Felting, like a ball or figurine you can not omit soap. If, however, the wool is rolled into a mat for surface felts, no soap is necessary.

The cleaner and the more chemically processed the wool is, the more lubricating soap is necessary, because the wool has been stripped of its natural fatty acids and welding salts which would normally act as soap. However, just like too much water, too much soap can also prevent the fibers from getting caught on to each other.

Generally, wool will felt without the addition of soap, but if added, will accelerate the process. Because of the way the scales are positioned on the shaft of the fiber, the fiber itself can only move in one direction. You take your top wool and pluck tufts and lay them out over your surface. My first row was the red on the right. The first layer should consist of several tufts laying next to each other like shingles on a roof, overlapping slightly, but all in one direction in the picture I worked from right to left, starting with red, then orange then purple.

Felting bonds and compresses animal fiber to make a dense, flat, warm fabric, using heat, moisture and agitation and in some industries, chemicals such as acid. Felt can be shaped, made thicker, cut, and sewn.

It lasts for a long time, resists water absorption, and is incredibly versatile. Who's got them? Most mammal fibers like sheep wool and human hair are fine strands with a solid core and a scaly surface. The scales are invisible to the naked eye.

These scales point away from the root of the fiber. Try this cool experiment: pluck out one of your hairs ouch and rub it back and forth between finger and thumb. No matter which direction the hair is pointing, your thumb and finger will "walk" away from the root towards the tip of the hair.

That's because you're using the microscopic scales, which point towards the tip, like steps! Ever back combed your hair? You rapidly comb the hair back towards the root, roughing up the scales; add a little hair-spray, and the now-roughened hair sticks together. Not only will you look like Emma Peel circa , but you will have demonstrated the scaliness of mammalian hair.

These scales are also what makes mammal hair dye-absorbent. Here's a nice little illustration from a article presented by Watson Smith to the Hat Manufacturers' Association. It shows "Finest merino wool fibre. Typical wool fibre. Fibre of wool from Chinese sheep. When the Olde Timey folks were making hats out of animal hair, they treated it first, usually with some kind of acid.

This is why the Mad Hatter is mad; mercury poisoning from the nitric acid from nitrate of mercury. Grim eh? The acid etched the surface and roughened the scales. Only some mammal hair is naturally scaly enough to felt without a lot of work or a chemical additive. The scales on wool, and other animal fibers like alpaca and cashmere, are naturally long and pointy, and can even resemble thorns. These thorny scales, when at rest, lie fairly close to the surface.

When wool is agitated, or wet, the scales flare out from the surface. Does your favorite sweater have a hole in it? Use needle felting to patch it up!

What are you waiting for? Grab your roving wool and your barbed needle, let your imagination run wild, and get your felting on!

Click here to cancel reply. Same here! Painting with wool, and all the other projects listed by Tom Kelly. I am also interested in needle felting tutorials in various project types.

These are definitely in demand from the other responses here, too. Thank you! You need some felting tutorials. There are lovely scarves you can make easily using wet felting method. Felted soap with needle felted designs on top. Jewellery or vessels. I could go on and on. Nothing can reverse this bonding. It doesn't matter whether you have spun, knitted, crocheted or woven your projects.

The result of adding heat, water and pressure or agitation is the same. Your wool felt fabric project will shrink and become thicker and firmer. This can be a bonus, rather than a problem, but only if you MEAN to felt something. There are 3 ways of felting wool into fabric - two 'wet' methods and one 'dry'. The first I will call the washing machine or 'accidental' method, as many of you will have accidentally shrunk a pure wool sweater.

I have! This is the easiest, as your machine does all the hard work. Basically, you just machine wash your finished project. The second method is 'wet' felting too.