The Fiber Studio my favorite fiber shop, is going out of business. Everything is 25% off this week and 35% off next week. I bought 10 lbs of Corriedale this afternoon.
I had a comment with lots of questions about felting and so I thought I would just answer in a post and share with everyone.
I love all of your crafts but I am really interested in wet felting slippers and am wondering if you could recommend a place to purchase good roving to use?
In Minneapolis, you want to go to the Fiber Studio. Pam, the owner, is super nice and she also sells on etsy and mail orders. Maybe more important than where you get your wool, is what kind of roving you get. I recommend Corriedale for beginners. Corriedale is the kind of sheep that the wool comes from, it’s not a brand name or company. Corriedale is a nice soft fiber, but it is a little coarser than merino and it is much easier to felt if you are just starting out. It is what I use with all of the kids & beginner classes that I teach because it is so reliable. Make sure that your fiber does not say “superwash” or “washable”. Those are treated so that they will not felt.
Also, how many ounces does it take to do a pair of slippers?
That’s a little hard to say, because it depends on what you are doing – how thick they are, how big you are making them (kids or adults, short or bootie style). I would guess that somewhere between 3-4 oz would probably be enough.
I just tried my first pair and it was a disaster. Not all of the wool I used felted.
I am so sorry! You might have had a mix of wools that didn’t all felt the same. When you start out, I would try to make sure you have all the same kind of wool – different colors are fine, but get all Corriedale or all merino. I taught a class once with some beautiful mystery fiber – all but one color in the mix felted really well and the navy blue didn’t felt at all. It was really discouraging and my students were patient but frustrated.
I did one color for the inside and another for the top and the top just fell off when I tried to remove it from the resist!
I am guessing this is because your piece started to felt before it was completely assembled. This is really common in my beginner classes, so don’t feel bad! Two things are probably happening:
1. When you first start assembling your slippers (or any other felt shape) you have to handle the wool really gently. You can wrap it around your resist, get it wet, add layers etc, but you don’t want to do anything to agitate it until you are completely done building up the layers. Agitating would be anything that involves squishing, patting, rubbing, kneading, or smooshing the wool. If you have agitated the bottom part of your slippers so that they have started to felt and then you try to add another layer on top, they will not “stick” together no matter what you do. What happens when you are felting is that the individual fibers shrink, curl up and lock together. Once that “felting” has started, there is nothing for the next new layer of fibers to grab on to because everything has already grabbed on to something else. The way to fix this is to make sure that you have every layer and all the parts of the slipper completely assembled around the resist before you do any agitating. You will want to pat and rub the fibers in to place, resist the urge!
2. If you add your layers of wool too much at a time, sometimes it doesn’t want to be friends with the other wool. Thin layers are the key. Add a thin layer of wool, add a mist of soapy water. Repeat many many times. Thin layers means that you should be able to see through it. Spread the dry fibers out so they are like a thin sheet before you add them to your slipper.
For more great step-by-step help, check out this book:
Feltmaking by Chad Alice Hagen
Chad is a fantastic teacher and she knows her stuff. This is my “go to” book for wet felting. She has a lot of steps (like making your olive oil soap solution) so it seems a little involved, but trust me. Follow her instructions the first few times until your fingers learn what they are doing, then you can start to experiment. The olive oil soap “slime” is worth every minute of the effort, especially if you are making something big.
Hope that helps!
There it is! My felted garden with its ribbons. Pratt School is about 1/2 a block from the Textile Center, so every class walked over to do their part of the garden with me and Lynn, another Textile Center teacher. All the pieces in the garden are wet felted and then my fantastic intern Lauren and I stitched them on to the background piece. It was hung in a sort of odd spot at the fair, but I hope lots of people got to see it in person.
(I didn’t bring the camera cable, so you will have to use your imaginations on this one!)
I have arrived in Idaho. It is beautifully sunny and warm enough to go walking without a heavy jacket – pure bliss. I taught wet and dry felting today. The day flew by and the students were all fantastic! (Hello students!) We made beads, sushi, flat inlay pieces, needle felted surface embellishment and a flock of needle felted birds. Plus we did a little bit of koolaid dyed wool just for fun.
I have to say that I would come back and teach here any time. The house and classroom are great.
Shibori dyes tomorrow. I am off to put the scarves in the laundry now. Photos when I get back.
I have filled up my spring with teaching gigs! Come and see me in Idaho at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts teaching wet & dry felting, beginning shibori and hand embroidery plus a teens shibori class and a kids weaving class. Or you can come to my “Starting a Blog” or “Opening an etsy shop” at the Textile Center in March and April.
What have I been busy doing? Getting ready for my favorite holiday show at Cafe Wren in Luck, WI. This is my 6th year at the show and I think I finally have the display down to an art. This year was a little smaller than some, since I spent the fall busy with wedding activities.
Here’s my set up. This is a great show, where I just set up and there is a central check out, so I don’t have to table-sit. A huge plus! I brought 52 or so puppets up this year. Andy made me this great stand for them – so cute! – and the rest live under the table until it’s time for them to fill in the blanks.
I made a few little tiny needle felted ornaments this year. A bunch of birds plus a penguin and a lobster (and some turtles and sushi…)
And finally enamels! This is the first show I have brought them to. I really think I made some great ones and I hope they go home with lots of people. I took close up photos of all of them if you want a closer look – head over to my flickr.
And since it is a coffee shop where the show is held, I pulled out all of my coffee cup coasters from the etsy shop and brought those along.
I finally managed this year to get a little more organized and not make myself crazy making puppets the last 3 days before the sale. What a nice feeling. I was considering doing more enamels at 10 pm before I drove up to Luck the next morning, but that’s another story. The first year I did this show, my prices were too low and I had no idea how many puppets I would need. The organizer called me after the first day and said “you have to bring more!” I spent every day sewing like mad and then jumping in to the car and driving up there with whatever I had finished. It’s a nice problem to have, but wow, I never wanted to see a puppet again.
Off to knit a ***** for ***** – gotta get some Christmas presents done!
It was nice to have an extra day off but I spent most of it getting ready for holiday shows. I do basically two big art shows every year – one starts the beginning of november and one starts this coming weekend.
For one show this year I am doing something new – felted ornaments. I have made tiny little needle felted and wet felted ornaments – these sushi rolls are about 1/2″ by 3/4″. I have been working on them off and on for months – making a few here and there. We will see how they do.
