e-co-design: Felting

Wet Felting is a way of combining fibers by agitating and matting them together. By using wool and combining it to loosely woven fabrics you can create beautiful and unique patterns. A friend of mine helped me learn by walking me through the process. Here we felted wool to cotton fabric. This was achieved by placing the wool roving on each side of a thin cotton fabric and agitating the fibers so that the wool fibers begin to mat together through the cotton weave, as if 2 hands are grasping each other with fabric between them. You need wool roving, loosely woven fabric, hot water, soap, a screen or mat (a beach mat is used in these pictures), and a synthetic fabric.
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First lay down your mat or screen, we used a beach mat. To make sure the fibers did not stick to the texture of the mat we put a plastic trash bag in between. Begin to pull the fibers apart and spread them into the shape or design you desire. When pulling the fibers apart make sure to layer them in different directions. Next place your fabric on top of the wool fibers, and begin to layer more wool on top of the places you've put the first layer of wool. This will sandwich the cotton so that the wool fibers will be able to grab together and create a strong hold. It is important to make sure that there is wool on each side of your fabric, if there is only wool on one side there are no fibers for the wool grasp on to.
(click to enlarge)

Once you have 2 layers of wool sandwiching your layer of fabric in the design desired you can pour your hot water over the wool. You do not need to soak the entire surface, just make sure the fibers are all wet. Then pour soap over top, just enough as if you were hand washing clothing.

Next place the synthetic fiber over your project sandwiching your fabric and wool between the the synthetic fabric and the mat, this way as you agitate the fibers it does not become one giant felt clump. Roll your mat up and being agitate it, as if you were using a rolling pin over dough.

After agitating it for a few minutes, unroll it and agitate it again against the texture of the mat as if you were hand washing a garment against a wash board. You may need to add more hot water and more soap. Make sure you are really working the wool fibers together through the cotton.

After this rinse you fabric off in water and let it dry. If you did not get the design or shape you wanted or some of the fibers aren't sticking to your fabric you can repeat the process to get the your desired results.