The Dodo Blog

Pressure In Wet Felting – Part 4

May 04, 2017

TOSSING/THROWING/TUMBLING

Welcome to the last part of this series on how to apply pressure in wet felting.

This is another one of my favorite methods for fulling. Since I love working with my hands, and prefer avoiding tools, I use the TOSSING/THROWING technique in nuno felting, as well as when I’m making pieces without fabric, but where the wool has been laid very thinly (cobweb felt). This is only done in the last stages of fulling, after I’ve secured the fibers in place through rolling a bit, of course.

This technique doesn’t full the felt as evenly as rolling, but I like it because it causes a quick shrinkage, and gives the felt surface a more textured and wavy look.

I would recommend this method for small or thin pieces. I’ve used this method for all the items below.

Before you do the throwing, make sure you have enough water and soap in your piece, but it shouldn’t be soaked. Start gently, and throw harder as you progress. Do it in the sink or...

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Pressure In Wet Felting – Part 3

Apr 27, 2017

POUNDING/BEATING/STOMPING

In these techniques, pressure is applied to the piece by hitting it with something. These are more aggressive methods and they make sense when you’re felting a large piece, especially if it’s a thick one, or when you want to get a particularly dense felt. In fact, this technique was widely used in traditional felting, in combination with rolling, especially for carpets.

Stomping would, of course, be done with your feet, whereas pounding and beating would imply using a tool again. Depending on the size of the piece, some felters may use a meat mallet or a potato masher, wooden hammers or sticks/clubs.

Image from “Vom Filz behütet”, Bruno Bujack

One way to do this, is to roll the piece and to hit it on the spots, where we want our felt to become denser. The piece should then be constantly turned, in order to get an even result.

The advantage is that it’s easier to achieve a greater density than with other methods, but ...

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Pressure In Wet Felting – Part 2

Apr 19, 2017

RUBBING/MASSAGING/KNEADING

1. WITH YOUR HANDS

This is probably the most intuitive method because all you need for it are your bare hands.

It’s definitely the one to use after you’ve laid the wool, and applied water and soap. You start by pressing the wool layers to get the air out of the fibers, and then you rub and massage gently, to get the fibers to migrate and slowly connect to each other.

It’s generally a good idea not to work directly on the wool in this phase, to avoid the fibers from moving. Instead, you should lay a piece of tulle, net or a plastic on the wool, to keep the fibers in place.

Image from “Filzen – Alte Tradition, modernes Handwerk”, Gunilla Paetau Sjöberg

If you’re working on a small piece it probably doesn’t make much sense to use the rolling method, so you might do the entire piece using only your hands. In this case, just rubbing and massaging might still take too long, so a great alternative is to knead...

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Pressure In Wet Felting – The Fifth Element

Apr 13, 2017

In some of my latest blog posts, I’ve been talking about the factors we have to take into account in wet felting. We’ve already seen that:

  • the WOOL choice is definitely where everything starts,
  • SOAP has a fundamental function in the process,
  • and the combination of WATER and TEMPERATURE is extremely important.

So, you could say that PRESSURE is the fifth element in wet felting, because nothing happens without mechanical action. This means you’ll have to either sweat, or use some kind of tool or machine to add AGITATION to the felting to complete the process.

Image from www.nzmerino.co.nz

Wool fibers felt due to the microscopic scales they have on the surface. During the felting process, they open up and connect to each other, creating the fabric.

And the purpose of agitation is exactly to interlock the fibers to create a compacter, thicker material. Pressure forces the air out of the fibers, so that they can come in contact with one another. At the beginning, it...

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Hot VS Cold Water In Wet Felting

Mar 29, 2017

WATER is another element of the wet felting equation. As you know, water has to be added to the wool (whether in a soap/water solution or by applying it directly to the piece you want to felt).

The question is should you work with HOT or with COLD water?

I learnt to felt with hot water and I was astounded when I discovered that cold water also works. And it works because the essential thing is to create a situation of pH change in the wool, along with other conditions for the opening of the fibers. All of this happens with cold water too.

But, if you’re washing a 100% wool sweater, you know you should do it with cold rather than with hot water. And why? Well, because a higher temperature speeds up the felting process.

If you’re thinking “so why should I care?”, let me give you a practical example.

Have you ever tried nuno felting a piece with hot water, only to discover that your wool didn’t attach to the silk? This might happen for different reasons,...

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Soap For Wet Felting 101

Mar 23, 2017
 

Today I’m going back to basics and I’m talking about SOAP.

As you know, there’s a lot of information around the right one for felting. In fact, different felters have different preferences. But the truth is, from olive oil soap, to dishwashing liquid, or hand soap, all of them produce felt.

If you don’t mind, I’ll be geeky for a while. It might sound strange to you, but I actually find this interesting ?

Now, if you read anything about felting in Mongolia, you’ll see they traditionally used animal urine to felt. The reason is that changing the pH of the wool causes the scales of the fibers to open. Apparently, if your felting solution is pH4 or below and pH8 or above, the felting is faster. But I don’t want to go much deeper into this. The point I’m trying to make is kinda “All roads lead to Rome”. Generally speaking, as long as you change your wool’s pH enough, it’ll produce felt.

Of course, instead of animal...

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Price Change

Mar 23, 2017

Hi!

I wanted to let you know there will be a price change in my eBooks and online video workshops.

So, if you’ve had an eye on one of them, please note that they’ll be available for the present price only for one more week. After that the price will go up.

Talk to you soon!

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Learn To Felt The English Rose Brooch

Mar 16, 2017

Hello!

Today I’ve got something really special for you!

This has been one of my best sellers for years and I finally decided to teach it, so it’s now available as an eBook.

The English Rose is a flower that has been designed primarily to be applied on brooches. But you can use it for hair accessories or anything else you might think of. It’s guaranteed to make any outfit stand out!

What’s particular about this workshop is that it teaches you how to wet felt a flower that is extremely light weight (8 to 12 grams), but resistant at the same time. And that’s all due to this mix technique and the wool type I use.

The workshop includes a tutorial PDF (43 pages and over 200 photos), plus a second one with the leaf templates.

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Recycle Felt Rests And Make A Sweet Gift

Mar 08, 2017

No matter if you’re just starting out or if you’re an experienced felt maker. Whether something goes wrong with a project or you’ve made a pre-felt and didn’t use it all, there are always felt rests. Mine keep increasing! I have lots of bags with pieces in all colors and sizes. And I tell everyone who’s ever attended one of my workshops not to throw anything away. The way I see it, wool is too precious to land in the garbage bin.

But, of course, what’s the point in collecting them if you just keep having bigger bags? So, here’s an idea of a sweet and easy project you can make with something like a bag that went wrong (I have lots of those too). All you need is a piece with 10 to 12 cm, depending on the template you choose.

Here are a couple of shapes I suggest. I used to make keyholders and magnets like this. They can be sweet and original gifts!

And these are some of the pieces I have in those bags I was talking about ? ...

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Felting Wool – How To Choose The Right One

Mar 02, 2017

When it comes to buying the wool for your felting project, you can feel really overwhelmed by the enormous choice available on the market. Also, depending on where you’re buying it from, you might get a lot of different options in terms of the sheep race.

So, here’s my suggestion on how to navigate your next wool shopping in 3 easy steps.

Step 1: Is your project needle felted or wet felted?

If you’re planning to needle felt something, your best choice is wool batting. This is wool that has only been washed and carded, so the wool fibers are going in different directions, unlike wool tops, that have been combed, and therefore have all their fibers going in the same direction.

When you’re working with a needle, this type of wool is faster to felt and you get a smooth surface, instead of a surface full of visible wool fibers (where you can almost see “threads”), which is the result of needle felting with wool tops.

Also, a harder wool is easier to...

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