New To Wet Felting? These Resources Are For You!

Have you just recently discovered wet felting, and don’t know where to start? I’ve put together a list of resources for you to help you know what to learn next.

START BY MASTERING THE BASIC WET FELTING SHAPES

When people approach me about learning to wet felt, they often tell me they’d like to make scarves and garments, so they’re particularly interested in nuno felting.

But to get to nuno felting and other more demanding techniques, you need to be confident with the basics first.

So, here are the simplest instructions for the 3 basic shapes, whether you would like to work with wool batts or with wool tops.

• Felting a cord with wool tops
• Felting a cord with wool batts
• Felting a ball with wool tops
• Felting a ball with wool batts
• Felting a sheet with wool tops
• Felting a sheet with wool batts

And here are a couple of additional tips that can help you perfect your technique:

• How to correctly pull the wool
• How to know if you’ve got enough soap?
• How to know if the felt is ready?
• How thick should your layout be?
• How to perfect your layout

In case you’re not sure what a pre-felt is or what it’s for, here’s a short article that can help: What’s a pre-felt?

WHY DOES WOOL FELT? THE 5 ELEMENTS NEEDED TO WET FELT

It’s important to understand why wool felts, since it can also help you know why something went wrong with a project. These are the 5 elements needed to wet felt: 1) wool, 2) soap, 3) water, 4) heat and 5) agitation/pressure.

Why don’t other fibers felt like wool? Well, wool is a very special fiber. It has microscopic scales along its surface. When the fibers come in contact with moisture and pressure, these scales open up and lock onto nearby fibers to form the tight mass we call felt. Heat and soap facilitate the felting process. As the fibers tighten onto each other, the piece shrinks. And the process is irreversible!

Source: https://www.powermerino.com/merino-wool-benefits.html

Are you interested in knowing more about the 5 elements needed for wet felting? Click on the links below to access more detailed articles.

1. Wool
2. Soap
3. Water and heat
4. Agitation/pressure (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)

WHAT IS WHAT IN WET FELTING?

Do you keep hearing terms like fleece, wool batts, wool tops, and don’t actually know what these are? Here’s an article that can help you with that. And an additional one on the types of felt.

FREE PROJECTS

Here are a couple of simple wet felting projects to try what you’ve just learnt.

• Keyholders and magnets
• Ball necklace
• Play cherries

FEELING READY TO START WORKING WITH RESISTS?

Have you been experimenting a bit and would like to peak into wet felting with resists? Then check out these two blog posts that introduce you to them.

• What’s a resist?
• Which materials can you use for a resist?

WHERE TO GET YOUR WOOL AND HOW TO STORE IT

If you can’t find a supplier near you, the best thing is to place an order online. Here’s a list of online suppliers that I’ve either personally ordered from or have been recommended by my students.

Have you already ordered your wool, but aren’t sure how to store it to protect it from bugs? You can find tips on this in the article below.

• International suppliers list
• How to store your wool to protect it

I hope this was helpful and I wish you lots of fun in your new hobby!