The Dodo Blog

You may have seen the images of my anise pod and have been curious about how the shape is created. If that’s the case, I have good news. The class is available again!

About one year ago I opened this course for registration for the first time.

As you may know, I initially created it as part of the lessons on book resists in the THE DODO HUB annual program. But the particular shape of the piece caused curiosity, so I decided to open it up for non-members of TDH as well.

The registration is open until Friday (October 4^th).

You’ll not only be learning how to wet felt this beautiful seed pod, but you’ll also learn to design a book resist for your own project.

If it sounds interesting to you, but you have questions that aren’t covered on the course page, send me an email and let me know how I can help.

Have you ever felted a vessel, a bag or another 3D item and found that you couldn’t get rid of the seams on the sides? Did you wonder why it happened? Did you think that those seams could have been prevented by filling the piece with a balloon or any other object?

If that’s the case, know that the issues started way before the final shaping and drying phase. And so, no filling the piece in the end would have made it flat.

Today I bring you 7 tips that can help!

Once you have those pesky side ridges on your 3D felt, it’s very difficult to get rid of them. Sure, rubbing the seam area can help, but the problem happens in the layout phase, as well as the initial phase of the felting process. So, rubbing won’t completely solve the problem. Let’s have a look at was does help.

IN THE LAYOUT PHASE

There are two things to watch for during the layout phase:

1. The layout on the edge

From my point of view, there are 2 ways you can do the layout on...

If you’ve been waiting to enroll in THE DODO HUB, I’ve got good news. It’s open and you can sign up as of now!

And, if you happen to be new to the Dodo world, and you’re not sure what THE DODO HUB is, you can check all the details here.

But, before you check the details, let me tell you who THE DODO HUB is for.

Let’s say you’ve been a felt maker for some years now, but …

• you feel like you’ve reached a plateau, and you don’t know how to develop your work further.
• you want to learn new techniques, and not necessarily take a class to make a particular piece.
• you'd love to have your own signature style, but you secretly think you’re not creative enough.
• you admire other felt makers, but you feel like they know some secret that you don’t, so you don’t believe you could ever achieve such amazing results.
• you don’t feel confident enough to show, gift or sell your work because you think some details ...

Have you noticed the BABY classes are back?

Many of you have been asking to have the baby booties class separately. You’ve also showed interest in having it available “on demand”, which is understandable, since babies grow fast

So, I’ve listened to your requests and created two separate classes: “Comfy Baby Booties & Tiny Baby Mittens” and “Sweet Baby Jacket & Daisy baby Hat”. They’re already available and can be purchased at any time.

They’re now in a DIY version, and the videos and PDFs are downloadable. Just click on the images below to be taken to the course information.

Whether you’re planning to enroll in the class or not, here’s some information that may be useful for you.

As I reopened the baby courses to enrolment, it was brought to my attention that some of the designs are not compliant with the safety standards of many countries. I was very grateful for these contacts, since this is...

I think the importance of prefelts in wet felting is sometimes underestimated. Prefelts are extremely useful and there’s no end to how you can apply them in your wet felting projects. So, mastering how to make them exactly as you want for a particular piece can massively improve your work.

Let’s have a look at some of the many ways prefelts can be used, as well as a couple of tips to apply them successfully.

PREFELTS FOR NUNO FELTING

In most cases, nuno felted pieces decorated with crisp designs are created with prefelts. But prefelts are a bit more difficult to attach to silk than unfelted wool.

So, to make it work, you need to:

• use thin prefelts,
• felt slowly and gently,
• and work with cold water,

to give the wool fibers time to migrate into the silk.

The most effective felting technique in this case is sanding, since it creates a lot of pressure, that accelerates the fiber migration through the fabric.

If you run into issues, and some parts of your prefelts...

As we’ve seen last week, a prefelt is a partially felted piece of wool felt. That means, it’s made in the exact same way as a piece of felt. The only difference is the degree to which it’s compacted.

I usually make my prefelts by wet felting Merino tops. For some projects, I have also needle felted wool batts. This second method is a way of imitating the industrial prefelts. But I find it’s only a good option for small projects.

What do you need to pay attention to when making a prefelt to use in other projects?

1. Evenness

It’s important to create your prefelts with an even thickness. If this is difficult for you, start by training your layout skills.

Do you need help with this? You can find everything you need to train your layout skills in the blog post “Resources To Help You Perfect Your Layout”. (Click link or image to access!)

2. Thickness

The thickness of your prefelt will depend on which projects you’ll be applying it...

After you’ve learnt the basics of wet felting – how to make flat felt and how to make a simple shape with a resist – it’s tempting to think that all you need to learn next is which shape a resist must have or which technique to use for a particular project. I’d argue that, before you think (or even while you're thinking) about those aspects, the next thing to do is master the layout.

In fact, I can say with total certainty that the moment I understood this and started working on my layout, was the moment my felt massively improved. I know I run the risk of being annoying for insisting on this. But I would love to support you in becoming a better felt maker, so I accept that risk.

There are two ways you can work on your layout. You can either spend some time making samples or just go ahead and work on your technique while making a piece. I know most felt makers avoid sampling, but I still think it’s the best way to perfect your work, and save time...