handworkstudio.ca

Felting, drawing, and watercolor painting for adults and children.

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Felting

By Larry ⋅ May 14, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

Felting is the process by which natural wool fiber is stimulated by friction to bind loose fibers together. Natural, unprocessed wool has scaly fibers, which when moistened and agitated bond together, creating a denser fabric. Using a variety of layering and wool colors, beautifully crafted objects ranging from dolls to purses can be created. Handwork Studio felting workshops utilize both wet and needle felting techniques, allowing participants to sculpt, decorate, and form everything ball ornaments and jewelry to wine/tea cozies to felt paintings and dolls.

Needle felting is a popular fiber arts craft conducted without the use of water. Special barbed felting needles that are used in industrial felting machines are used as a sculpting tool. Using a single needle or a small group of needles (2-5) in a hand held tool, the needles are used to sculpt the wool fiber. The barbs catch the scales on the fiber and push them through the layers of wool tangling them and binding them together much like the wet felting process. Fine details can be achieved using this technique and it is popular for 3D felted work.

Felt is made by a process called wet felting, where the natural wool fiber is stimulated by friction and lubricated by moisture (usually soapy water), and the fibers move at a 90 degree angle towards the friction source[clarification needed] and then away again, in effect making little “tacking” stitches. Only 5% of the fibers are active at any one moment, but the process is continual, and so different ’sets’ of fibers become activated and then deactivated in the continual process.

This “wet” process utilizes the inherent nature of wool and other animal hairs, because the hairs have scales on them which are directional. The hairs also have kinks in them, and this combination of scales (like the structure of a pine cone) is what reacts to the stimulation of friction and causes the phenomenon of felting. It tends to work well with woolen fibers as their scales, when aggravated, bond together to form a clo

In both children and adults, handwork fosters creativity and confidence, allowing participants to formulate an idea and see it come to fruition by their own hands.

Gnome/Doll Felting Workshop

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