The Dodo Blog

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 i...

When we start a new hobby, the natural tendency is to imitate someone else’s style. And there’s no reason to feel bad about it. We all do it. I did it too. When I was discovering wet felting, I had no clue how I could explore it. Following what other felt makers were doing was the only way to learn and grow.

So, it’s absolutely natural. Throughout History, if you wanted to learn how to paint, you’d start by copying some else’s paintings. This would teach you their techniques and processes, so that you could develop your own later.

But there comes a time when you don’t want to be LIMITED by imitation anymore. Instead, you want to grow and create your own style. It may not be well defined at first, but slowly you start seeing your character, preferences, and your ‘touch’ in the pieces you make.

How about you? Which stage do you think you’re in? Do you feel like you’re getting close to that fork in the road? If you are, I have a couple of tips that may help you get there faster.

1....

If you’ve been following this series on how to combine colors for wet felting, you know about

• primary,
• secondary,
• and tertiary colors.

Complementary, triadic, and analogous colors are now clear to you.

You also understand how to create a monochromatic palette, and you’re aware of the warm and cool sides of the color wheel.

And you know what neutral colors are and how you can use them to reduce overwhelm in a color palette and create harmony.

With all these tools in your color toolbox, you’re now ready to start mixing your wet felting color palettes.

If you have a deeper knowledge of color theory, you may think “Wait, Vanda, why haven’t you talked about which colors to mix to create brown or what are hues and value in color?”

My answer to that is I never intended this series to be about going deep into color theory. There are thousands of sites online doing exactly that. I wanted to prevent the overwhelm that color theory means for those of us who haven’t studied ar...

Welcome to part 3 of my series on how to use color for wet felting. In the first 2 parts we’ve looked at some of the basic concepts behind the color wheel.

So, now you know about

• warm and cool colors
• and monochromatic palettes

as well as

• complementary
• triadic
• and analogous colors.

There’s only one last concept I’d like to add: the concept of neutral colors.

Neutral colors are white, black, grey, and brown. But they’re also those colors that can be difficult to define. They live somewhere between the ones I’ve just mentioned.

They show up in Nature in sand, rocks, and shells. We call them off-white, cream, tan, beige, taupe, ivory. They can also have a bit of blue, yellow or pink in them. They can be warm or cool, depending on the colors they were created from.

Neutrals complement the colors from the color wheel. They reduce overwhelm, they’re easy on the eyes and create a peaceful atmosphere. So, adding them to your color palettes can really help you crea...

Last week we started talking about ways to use color in our wet felting projects. We had a look at the color wheel, and at primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

We also spoke about the two easiest ways to create color schemes without having to elaborate too much on any combination and to always get it right: monochromatic and warm/cool color schemes.

Until now, it was easy-peasy. Right?

Now, there are thousands of ways I could make this complicated. But that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. I know I shied away from color theory for years because – not having studied art – I just found it too daunting.

And it makes sense when you’re mixing paint and trying to obtain an exact color. But that’s not what we do as felt makers. For us crazy fiber lovers, color is meant to bring out the beauty of our pieces by creating harmony. We don’t need that much detail.

So – after the disclaimer – let’s dive into part 2 of my version of how to use the color wheel for wet felting.

BASI...

While some people are great with this – either because they have an intuition for color or because they’ve studied art – many of us find it difficult to combine colors to get the harmonious results we want. Even if you’re a natural at this, I’ve personally found that it’s something you can always improve on.

To help you create palettes that convey what you want for your pieces, as well as to give you ideas of how you can mix wool to attain a particular shade, I’m creating a short series on this topic. For that, we need to start at the beginning, with the color wheel.

I’m sure you have an understanding of the color wheel. But do you use it when you choose the colors for your projects? And in which ways can you use it to create color palettes or to convey particular feelings? This is an excellent tool to help you with your decisions if you know how to take advantage of it.

The color wheel is a color circle created to illustrate the relationship between primary, secondary and tertiary ...

If you’ve been in my felting world for some time, you’ve heard me talking about this book for sure. It’s one of my absolute favorites in my collection.

If you’ve just recently discovered my blog, and you’re as obsessed about felting books as I am, there’s still time to add it to your Christmas presents wish list :)

I’m talking about “How I Felt”, a book about the work of the late Christine Birkle.

There are many felt makers I admire. But after over 20 years of looking at other artists’ work, Christine Birkle is still number one for me.

She founded the label HUT UP in Berlin in the 90s and was an absolute pioneer of modern wet felting. She has created many of the designs that inspired much of what is currently around in our field.

I was extremely lucky to have come across her work in Berlin in the early 2000s and have spent many hours admiring her pieces live in her shop in Berlin.

I’ve always been fascinated by Christine’s use of color and transparency, and the way she ma...

Do you ever have moments of taking a glimpse at your felting table and thinking “OMG, look at all this plastic”? It’s happened to me often, so I’ve been trying to substitute it for other materials whenever I can. And I’ve also been thinking about writing a couple of tips for the felt makers who are interested in reducing plastic, but don’t know what to use instead.

I find fighting plastic usage extremely difficult. Plastic is everywhere, and it’s so ingrained in our daily habits too. But I feel like if I’m conscious about it, there’s at least a way to avoid some of it.

Anyway, after ordering a couple of issues of the German felting magazine FilzFun, I was very excited when I saw an article about this exact topic in one of them, intitled “Filzen ohne Plastik” (Felting without Plastic). It was written by felt maker Corinna Nitschmann and I find it has a lot of great ideas, some of which I had never thought about. So, I’ve spoken to Corinna, who gave me her permission to use her article...

In 20 years of felt making I haven’t (yet!) had any issues with moths. It may just have been luck or because of the way I store my wool. It’s definitely not because I don’t have tons of wool in my studio 😊

Since I frequently get questions about how I store my wool, as well as how to prevent moth attacks, I’ve compiled what I know and what I could find from different sources to offer you information that hopefully can protect your stash from these pesky little fiber predators.

A SHORT WORD ON THE LITTLE CREATURES

There are many types of moths, and most of them are harmless for wool. So, as most felt makers know, we’re talking about the so called “clothes moths” here.

Moths go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. But it’s only in the larvae stage that they feed on fiber.

Keratin is what they’re after. This is a protein found in animal-based materials like wool, fur, hair, feathers, mohair, and even silk. If these materials are stained with food, perspiration, or...

"Filzen: Alte Tradition, Modernes Handwerk" (German version)

"Felt: New Directions for an Ancient Craft" (English version)

by Gunilla Paetau Sjöberg

This might be the best book about wet felting I have. And I do have many 😊

It’s over 20 years old, it doesn’t have amazing photos and it has a lot of text. So, it might not be the first book to grab your attention when you look at my bookshelf.

I have it in German, but there’s also an English version.

So then, what makes it so special?

I think it’s the most complete wet felting book I’ve ever seen. I could call it a felting encyclopedia.

Let’s have a look inside, so that you can see what I mean.

It starts with an incredibly complete History of felt and it covers different felting traditions found in Europe and Asia: from hat making in Hungary and shepherd coats in Turkey, to the felt masks worn by the Vikings, and socks and shoes made in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.

It then dives into felting techniques from other cultures: ...