Felting

I recently took a class on wet felting. It's really super simple, and it has a lot of room for creativity. All you need is bubble wrap, soap and water, mosquito net, a rolling pin and wool. The only real problem is that it makes a mess- soap and water and slippery goop everywhere- so it might be a good outdoor picnic table project. I plan on getting one of those table cloths made out of plastic for my dining room table. You do need a pretty big surface area to do this (keep in mind anything you make will lose 30% of its length), and that's the only one I've got big enough.

Here's one of my FOs:



It's about 2 oz of handpainted corriedale roving. I laid it out in a loose, wavy grid on my bubble wrap. After the felting process, it actually becomes fabric, so it's much stronger than it looks.



It's really light and airy though. I did a few other pieces and experimented with density and color, but this is the one I like best.



It's also an excellent way to use up odd bits of roving. You don't need that much to begin with, but I made an interesting piece using bits of neps for texture.

I love the looks of a felted scarf, but if you sew, you can actually make garments out of your wet felt.

I found this basic guide online, but it's pretty dry...I'll plan on doing a photo tutorial soon.