Turn Your Loose Wools into Felts through Wet Felting

The craft industry is always coming up with great ideas to enhance their art. They develop different materials and procedures to enhance clothing options available for people. Apparently, weaving is not the only method they are using to produce natural and high quality wool clothes.

If you’re the kind of person who finds difficulty in learning the art of weaving, you can make a switch and try wet felting instead. Wet felting is the process of creating dense cloth through compressing loose wools and fleeces. Now, if you think that loose wool fibers are useless, think again. These loose wool fibers are compressed through the use of soap, hot water, and felting surface.

Felt is a popular material used for making hats, gloves, scarves, pillow covers, and baby booties. Felt fabrics are also used as padding for items such as vases, lamps, and picture frames because they are effective cushions. Felt is also child-friendly, since they can be used as felt boards that help children educationally. Aside from that, they can also be used as chalkboard erasers.

However, not all loose wool fibers can be turned into felt. Plant and synthetic fibers are not eligible for wet felting process. In frequent times, wool coming from alpacas are preferred than those that came from sheep, this if because alpaca wools are finer than the latter. You can also try merino wool.

You don’t necessarily need professional skills to conduct wet felting. All you need to do is to get the right materials for the process. You have to put your loose wools on the felting surface. Compress them using sponge, hot water, and soap. Remember not to use too much water and soap, because it will make compressing difficult. Be sure to equally compress your wool together, but don’t press it too hard. Then, wrap it up with your felting surface and roll it over. The fulling stage is important, so make sure that the felt is not stretching. When it stretches, it means that the wool is not fully compressed.

To finish your wet felting process, rinse the felt completely to remove soap. Make sure that there are no soaps left as it will damage your felt. Gently squeeze out water and roll your felt on a towel. Once it is completely dry, you can finally use it as a fabric.