Wet Felting

On Saturday I went to a one hour wet felting class at Kedlestone Hall. They are decorating the hall using wet felted baubles and acorns, using a blue and gold colour scheme to match some of the rooms there. I made one of each of these although I can't say I did a particularly good job!

Materials

For the acorn, I used carded wool in a yellowish colour. This wasn't a good choice as it is too close to the colour of the acorn cup it was to go in. The acorn cups had been sprayed gold.

The bauble was make with red and green carded wool, a polystyrene ball, fine glitter, and a bauble top.

Warm water and soap were also used, as well as some netting and bubble wrap, although the netting and bubble wrap are optional.

Technique

For the acorn, a small amount of wool was rolled up and then another piece the same size was placed with the fibres in the opposite direction. The whole thing was soaked in warm water, and then some washing up liquid applied. If you put too much washing up liquid on, the suds go everywhere! Once the wool blob is wet and soaped, you roll it in your hands, like rolling Plasticine into a ball. You keep doing this forever. Well ok, not forever but for maybe 20 minutes or so, until the piece is firm and much smaller. Once it's firm, you shape it into an acorn shape, let it dry and attach an acorn cup with PVA glue.

I'd asked if I could use two colours for the acorn, but was advised not to. The reason for this is that the first bunch of fibres is not visible so using a different colour wouldn't achieve anything. However, for the bauble, I used some green strands to create a swirly pattern on the ball. I did actually lay them straight on the red fibres but when I rolled the ball in my hands to felt it, they swirled around. I was quite pleased with the effect.

To make the bauble, I laid fibres in one direction to enclose the polystyrene ball, and then overlaid those with another layer of red wool with the fibres in the opposite direction. The green fibres were then laid at right angles again to the top layer of red fibres. I then applied a load of glitter and used the same technique of rolling the wet soapy mess in my hands. For this item, I did however also wrap netting around the ball and
roll it on the table. This seemed to speed up the felting process.

Once the ball was felted, a bauble top has to be inserted through the felt so it pops into the polystyrene. This is quite tricky to do but is made easier by poking one arm of the bauble top in first and then the other.

Tips

I had a problem with the finished acorn having a big crack in it. This is probably because I pressed too hard initially when I started to roll the ball of fibres in my hands. This could be disguised by added some extra fibres over the top and re-rolling the ball.

If when the item dries, part of it sticks up, this is because it hasn't been fully felted. To fix this you can just re-wet it and get rolling.