What is Felting?

Felting is the process of creating a textile material or fabric by uniting different natural fibers from animals like sheep, alpaca, llama as well as mohair goats and angora rabbits. These fibers can be mechanically compressed and incorporated into each other with two different techniques - needle felting or wet felting.Choose this theme to customize and add content to this page.

Why use wool?

Have you ever noticed pilling on clothing after its been worn, maybe on the underside of the arms of a sweater? Those pills were formed by the movement or agitation of your arm against the fibers of the sweater.

All natural fibers have what are called scales, which is a unique surface structure of overlapping cuticle cells. With wool and similar animal-based fibers these scales are large and rough making it easier to compress and lock the fibers together. On the other hand, cotton is derived from a plant and is softer with few, small scales, making it almost impossible to conjoin its fibers together with the mechanical motion of felting

Wet Felting                                                               Needle Felting

Wet felting begins by layering wool in varying directions and then combining it with soap and water to "work the fibers" by hand, creating pressure and friction. This allows the scales on the wool fibers to attach to each other and become matted. Wet felting can produce a durable two-dimensional textile or a three dimensional sculpture.

Nuno felting uses the same technique as wet felting and describes the incorporation of wool and other fibers into another textile such as silks. Nuno felting enhances surface textures, color and design.

Compared to wet felting, needle felting is a newer form of felting and uses a barbed needle to join the scales of the wool fibers together. Like wet felting, the barbed needle moving in and out of the wool fibers creates pressure and friction, which causes the fibers to attach to each other and become "felted." Needle felting is used to make three-dimensional structures or sculptures. Needle felting may also be incorporated into a wet felted textile.