The Dodo Blog

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...

If you're following my Instagram account, you know that I've been sharing photos of my new baby items for some time :)

The idea of creating more felted pieces for kids has been on my mind for long. I just think it's the perfect medium for babies: soft wool and silk, natural non-toxic fibers, environmentally friendly materials, washable and long lasting products. Just perfect!

In the past I've created workshops on baby hats, play food and - one of my best sellers - baby booties. I wanted to expand this collection with more complex pieces that could also allow me to work with more advanced felting techniques. And that's what I've been preparing for the last couple of months: an online course on how to wet felt your baby's booties and jackets.

This is a 3-week, step-by-step video course, that walks you through all you need to know to felt your baby's booties and jackets in 3 different sizes, 3 design variations and 3 felting techniques. It includes:

• Booties' downloadable pattern in 3...

When I first started wet felting, there where no YouTube videos and barely any books on the subject. I bought everything I could get my hands on and started experimenting. But most things on the market were very simple. So, for the most part, I learnt through trial and error.

One of the topics that nobody was going into in detail was the correct laying of the wool fibers. And, as I see it, that’s probably the most important thing you can learn about in wet felting. Sure, you do get felt no matter how well you lay your wool. But how good is your felt then?

This becomes more important if your piece needs a fair amount of shaping or if you’re making clothes, which need to adapt to your body.

So, what is the correct way to lay wool fibers?

First of all, wool for wet felting should be laid according to the shape of the piece. Let me use the example of a circular piece, like a beret. Would you lay your wool like this?

Well, you could. As I was saying, you will get a...

If you’ve followed my work for some time, you’ll know that something I constantly mention is how I like to teach in a way that empowers you to develop your style and explore your creativity.

I see no point in just showing you how to felt an object. When I’m developing my courses, my goal is always to go into the details and the reasons why I’m using a particular technique. That way, you can apply what you’ve learnt in a different project, so you’re free to develop your own designs. That allows you to grow way beyond the methods taught in a tutorial.

That’s one of the reasons I was so happy when I got an email from Audrey Petzold a couple of weeks ago. Audrey bought the tutorial “Felt Food – Fruit” last April and she wanted to know if the basic procedures I used for making the toy fruits could be scaled up to make life size fruits.

I told Audrey it was perfectly possible, and that she just had to make sure that the inner...

Today I bring you a new workshop. After being asked for more PDF tutorials, I am now creating some of the ones I had on video in a printable version.

This one is about play food and it’s based on a video course I launched last October. You can watch a video about the course here and check out some free videos on the included material here.

With over 140 pages and hundreds of detailed color photos, the PDF tutorial covers citrus fruits (oranges, mandarins and lemons) and berries (cherries, strawberries, blackberries and mulberries), and it includes:

0. Introduction
1. Materials and equipment
2. Making the pre-felts
3. Using leftovers to fill new felt pieces
4. Oranges, mandarins and lemons
5. Strawberries, cherries, blackberries and mulberries
• Leaf templates (1 PDF)
• Bonus: Basics of wet and needle felting (1 PDF)

This is a beginner level tutorial, so you don’t need to have any experience in wet felting. The bonus PDF gives you all the basics and has links to...

Today I’ve got a fun tutorial that shows you how to wet felt a ball necklace for children. It’s called Kid’s Dots, and it’s a piece I’ve sold for a long time. Now you get to see how it’s done (for FREE)

I decided to film this project because Stacy Tavassoli from Truly Majestic invited me to create a tutorial for her arm knitting community. Arm knitting is done with big amounts of wool roving, the same we use for wet felting. But it produces lots of scraps that you can’t use for knitting any more.

So here it is for you. It’s an easy tutorial, which is great for beginners. You won’t need much equipment. Actually, you probably have everything you need at home already. And it shows you 10 tips that are useful for other felting projects.

I’d love to see how your necklaces turned out, so click here to send me your photos

Have fun!

P.S.: The special Mother’s Day Pack is a 2 for 1 pack for crafty moms, that is only...

So, you’d like to learn how to felt hats for your kids Then this is the right workshop for you.

After this workshop, you’ll be able to customize the hats by changing the size and the color. And, once you get the hang of it, you can also make them in any shape you want.

It gives you the instructions for 6 different head sizes, from 33 cm (newborn) to 51 cm.

This is an intermediate level workshop, so you should have some experience and feel confident with the wool already.

You’ll be felting around a resist, and the project should take you about 3 to 4 hours to complete.

You’ll need the usual equipment to wet felt, plus a white wool batt (around 100 grams), a white and a yellow wool top (around 50 grams each).

With this workshop you’ll get 8 downloadable high-definition videos, and 2 PDFs, all of which you can save in your computer, and return to any time you want.

You’ll learn:

1. How to make the resist for the right size
2. Which is the best material...

I’ve been working on this online course for some time, and I’m happy to announce, it is now available in my Etsy shop.

If you’re familiar with my workshops, you’ll find this one very different from the ones I’ve created before. Instead of teaching you how to make a particular piece, my goal here is to talk about one theme – in this case, play fruit – in a very comprehensive way.

The idea is to enable you to create other similar pieces, based on what you learn here. So, more than a workshop, this is a course for beginners.

That’s why I’ve also added a bonus PDF, that’ll give you the chance to learn some of the basics, if you’re entirely new to felting.

What’s included in the course?

1. Introduction (1 video)
2. Materials And Equipment (1 PDF)
3. Making The Pre-Felts (1 video)
4. Using Wool Leftovers To Fill New Felt Pieces (1 video)
5. Oranges, mandarins and lemons (3 videos)
6. Peaches and plums (3 videos)
7. Strawberries,...

How would you like to felt your own baby shoes? Because, not only are they completely customizable and made with your own hands, but they’re also made from the biodegradable and renewable material that is wool.

If this sounds good to you, here’s the chance to learn how to felt baby boots is three different sizes: newborn to 3 months, 3 to 6 months, and 6 to 9 months.

This is an intermediate level workshop, so you should have some experience and feel confident with the wool already.

You’ll be felting around a resist, and the project should take you about 2 hours to complete.

You’ll need the usual equipment to wet felt, plus a wool batt and a wool top in your preferred colors (around 50 grams each).

With this workshop you’ll get 7 downloadable high definition videos, and a PDF with the templates, all of which you can save onto your computer, and return back to any time you want.

Check out the introduction below, and, if you enjoy the video, please share...