Designing your resists – From 3D to 2D

What do you do when you need a resist for a new wet felting project? Do you find yourself desperately going through Facebook felting groups, YouTube channels and all over the Internet to find the right template for the piece you want to felt?

Or are you able to draw your patterns by yourself?

If you’re going around the internet looking for the template for the exact piece you want to make, you may be feeling pretty frustrated. First of all, you don’t always find it, and, many times – if you do find it – it’s not in the size you need.

So, I’d like to suggest that you consider that you can start making your own templates for the pieces you have in mind. After all, the felt makers, who sell the patterns or offer them for free, they make them as well. So, there is a way to develop your own resists for your projects.

The question is HOW!

There is, in fact, a system. If you understand how it works, I’m sure you can start making your own templates. So, I want to give you an idea of my process because I make my own templates as well. If I have a piece in mind, I design my own resists.

Here are the first steps I take to start developing my resist for a particular project:

1. Creating the base pattern. In other words, going from 3D to 2D.
2. Deciding which wool type to use and if we want to add décor fibers.
3. Deciding how much wool and how many layers to apply.
4. Choosing the layout method that makes more sense for the project.
5. Considering which fulling methods are the best for the piece.

Watch the video to see an example of how I apply step 1 and go from 3D to 2D.  The next 4 steps are relatively easy to do on your own.

Next week, we’ll see how to make the sample for our project, as well as all the next steps to take, to achieve the template in the right size to account for the shrinkage rate.

But if you don’t want to wait for the next video or if you’d like to have the full details of all the steps, you can download the whole class for free. For that, just go to the tab ONLINE CLASSES on my website and click on “Resists Made Easy – A Vase Cover”. Follow the instructions to download the class for free.

Enjoy!