Needle Felt? Wet Felt? Industrial Felt? What's All That? Help!

If you google words like ‘felt’ or ‘felting’, you find lots of information, ranging from industrial felt to needle felt and everything in between. So, if you’re new to felting how do you find your way through all of this? Let me help.

HANDCRAFTED WET FELT

I guess you could say that wet felt is the ‘real deal’. Though it’s apparently difficult to prove, what we now call wet felt could be the oldest textile known to mankind for the simple reason that it requires absolutely no tool to craft. All you ultimately need is your bare hands. Here’s the definition of felt by the www.newworldencyclopedia.org:

  ‘Felt is a non-woven cloth that is produced by matting, condensing, and pressing fibers together. It is the oldest form of fabric known to humankind, predating weaving and knitting. It can be of any color and made into any shape or size.’

In so many cultures around the world, felt played a central role. That was the case for some nomadic societies, where wool was an easily available resource, it provided protection from the elements and was easy to carry around. In fact, because it was so important, there are some legends around the ‘discovery’ of felt and they all have something in common – the three basic elements needed to produce it: wool, moisture and agitation.

‘St Clement, the patron Saint of Hatters and St. Christopher, the patron Saint of travelers, are among those credited with the discovery of felt. Fleeing persecution and footsore, they and other early Christians tucked the sheep’s fleece they found caught on the bushes into their sandals to cushion their feet. At a later stage in their journeys they found the loose fleece had transformed itself into felt shoes.

“The origins of felt in Persia are ascribed to Solomon’s son who was a shepherd. He was sure that his sheep’s wool could be made into waterproof mats without the aid of a loom, but try as he might he could not make the fibers stick together, and stamped about on the fleece crying large tears of frustration. And behold! He had discovered felt.” The Art of the Feltmaker, M.E. Burkett

A favorite with school children is the legend of the felt carpet produced in Noah’s Ark. Sheep, goats, camels and other animals herded together in the Ark shed their fleece and during the voyage trampled it underfoot. When the animals had left the Ark Noah was amazed to find the floor carpeted in felt.’

In http://feltmakers.com/history-and-ethnography

If people even made their shelter and saddles out of felt, you can imagine how resistant it can be. In fact, if it’s well-crafted and cared for, it can be passed from generation to generation. It’s washable and, being made from a renewable material, it’s a very ecological product.

NUNO FELT

Like crochet or knitting, felt was seen as a traditional textile technique and was practically ignored by designers for a long time. But in the last decades it’s had a huge revival, largely due to its incredible versatility. This has led to a lot of experimentation, to the creation of new ways of felting and to the mixing of other materials with wool.

One of the extraordinary examples of this is nuno felt. This is a technique developed by Polly Stirling in the 90s, where the traditional wet felting is combined with light fabrics, like silk for example.

INDUSTRIAL FELT

Industrial felt can be produced in different ways. Some systems are based on an adaptation of the traditional technique that applies moisture and agitation (check out this video). But the textile industry has also created a new way of felting: dry felting with special needles.

This method began at the end of the 19^th century as an industrial process, whereby thousands of needles are used together to compact fibers that wouldn’t naturally felt (like plant and synthetic fibers) because they don’t have the same characteristics as wool. These needles have notches along the shaft that grab the fibers and tangle them together, turning them into a fabric.

HANDCRAFTED NEEDLE FELT

In the early 1980’s David and Eleanor Stanwood used a needle from industrial felting to develop needle felting as a handcraft. They taught Ayala Talpai, who continued to promote the technique and further developed it into the needle felting craft we know today.

When compared to wet felting, the disadvantage of this technique is that a piece crafted entirely with the needle can’t be washed. This kind of felt is also not as compact as wet felt, so it tends to have a shorter life. Nevertheless, needle felting offers a way to shape and decorate felted surfaces and sculpture fine detail.

KNIT OR CROCHET FELT

Another technique that was created with the experimentation of the last decades is the process of knitting or crocheting a piece and then felting it. The shrinkage has to be taken into account during the first part of the process. The piece is then felted and shrunk in the washing machine.

WOVEN FELT

As you can probably guess, woven felt is made by using wool, which is first woven into a fabric and then felted. When you cut it, it may still fray and have loose fibers, but it’s a very robust and warm fabric.

An example of this is ‘burel’, a Portuguese woven felt, that’s extremely warm and resistant. In fact, it was created as a protection from the harsh weather of the Portuguese highlands and was essentially used to make capes and coats for farmers and shepherds.

CARROTING AND THE MAD HATTER – A FELTING CURIOSITY

Because not all fibers felt naturally, in the 19^th century, hatters used a process called carroting to separate the furs of small animals from their skins to produce felt. The orange-colored solution used in carroting contained mercury, which poisoned the hatters, causing dementia and psychotic reactions. This is the origin of the phrase ‘mad as a hatter’ and of Lewis Carroll’s Mad Hatter character from Alice in Wonderland.