Felt Making Workshop...

Today I went to a Felt Workshop to earn how felt is made. 

First we layered white wool in a cross hatch patter. If you intend on making pockets in the felt you just simply place a piece of fabric and do another layer of white wool on top. Then use small wispy bits of coloured wool to create you design. There's no need to add loads of colour as its so vibrant and the colour gets stronger when it gets wet.You can also attach strings and other materials as long as they can attach themselves to the felt.








When your finished creating your chosen design you add a small amount of liquid soap to hot water and sprinkle onto your design. When you have saturated your piece you the roll it up in fabric or the wooden mats you can see in the picture.

You roll the felt to take out any moisture from the felt. It does get rather soapy so you can rinse it down with warm water. We use war water as it attached the wispy hairs of the felt together more securely than if wee used cold water. When you finished you unroll it and move the felt piece 90 degrees on the mat and roll it again to ensure that all the moisture is removed.

The felt hardens as it dries. The fabric pieces inside the felt that you placed there to create pockets can be removed fairly easy... the felt is strongly attached together so there's no need to be extra careful when taking this fabric out. If the felt is still a bit damp leaving it on top of a radiator will dry it out.

I'm happy with the results... I didn't realise how diverse felt can be and you can pretty much make any shape you want out of it as long as the ideas there.

Buy wrapping the wool around a can you can create rings. Instead of rolling out the water in wooden mats you can simply use you hands to create snake like coils. When the first ring is made by placing it on the can and wrapping the felt around it you can create a chain like structure.

You can wrap the wool around almost any shape to create a felt structure of it. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop and hopefully I can incorporate it into my project in some way.

-Sinéad