Handmade Felt Workshop

Felt Making

Felt is the oldest textile known to man. It predates weaving and knitting, in Turkey the remains of felt have been found, dating back to at least 6,500 BC. Felt is produced in many places in the world for such a diverse numbers of items such as: shoes, carpets art objects, tents, hats and jewellery.

Materials needed:
- Merino Wool Tops
- Warm water
-  Bar of soap
- Bubble wrap
- Netting
- Bamboo mat
- Towel or sugar paper

How To Make Felt

> Place the towel or sugar paper on a flat surface. Lay bubble wrap, bubble side up on the surface. Using Wool tops, pull the end fibres out gently and lay them down on the plastic in a square with all the fibres in the same direction.

> Leave a gap of approximately 2 cm clear between the edge of the fibres and the end the edge of the plastic. When you have created a fine but dense layer of fibres repeat the process but with the fibres laying in the opposite direction, making sure that you can't see the previous layer through the second layer.

> Repeat this process with the fibres running in the direction of the first layer and so on for about 3-4 layers.

>Boil the kettle and then get a small dish put a small amount of water from the kettle and then add a lot more cold water, so then the water is only warm.

> Place the netting over the top, sprinkle a small amount of warm water on top of the netting. Sweep the soap bar across the netting.

> With wet soapy hands rub over the netting, making sure that your hands are flat. If necessary, add some more water to ensure that the wool is "wetted" but not to much so that the piece is saturated.      

> Carry on rubbing until the fibres have bonded together, turn your piece over and repeat. Then you can roll it in the bamboo mat which increases the bonding process.

> Rinse out the piece in cold water, rinse out felt piece and roll it again in the bamboo mat. 


Health and Safety:

- Make sure that when boiling the water in the kettle, that you add enough cold water to it so you don't end up burning your hand when sprinkling it over the mesh.

- If there any spillages make sure to clean them up straight away.

The artist related to this workshop is Moy Mackay   

My Finished Piece

Week 2 - Response to artist
Here I have step by step images showing how I have created my piece
I had decided that I wanted to create a piece that showed a field with one sheep this relates to the pieces the artist has created with sheep involved.

I started by creating my background layer, made from white felt i then added my colour mixed of blue and white to create my sky.

I then decided on doing another colour mix where I took a light green and a dark this I used to represent grass I then took some orange felt and cut out a circle for the sun, i wanted it to stand out to create a more abstract approach.

I decided that I wanted create a fence, to do this I took a small amount of felt and started to twist it, this takes a while to do as this felt tries to unravel but eventually it stayed twisted. I repeated this several more times until completed.  

The next thing I created was the tree to do that i took a small amount of brown felt and made the truck, then like with my fence I took small amounts of felt and twisted it the difference with these twists where that I only twisted them at the top and the bottom.

Between the sky and the grass i had decided to add some small wavy parts of the teal felt, i felt that it would look more like Moy Mackay.

To create the sheep i started by getting some white felt which I rolled into a ball I then placed it on. For the face i got a small piece of black felt and like with the white i rolled it into a ball, to make the ears i pulled at the ball.

 The next steps are the same as the plain piece of felt i started by getting the mesh and placing it over the piece then i added the water over the top making sure to get all of the edges wet, then you take the bar of soap and rub it all over the mesh. With your hands rub over the netting making sure to keep  your hands flat. Flip the piece over and repeat the process.

  

This is what my piece looked like after I had flipped it over and rubbed it with the soap.

The next step was to put it into the bamboo mat. I had struggled with this this time as my piece was quite big and did not fit completely in the mat, but i just kept rolling it between my hands and then flipping it until it shrunk and was small enough to completely fit in the mat. 

After i had rolled it in the mat a few time i took it over to the sink and rinsed it our with cold water, this is how it turned out. I am happy with my final piece and feel that I have created something that looks similar to the artist's pieces.

'The Cheviot Line'

Here is an example of one of Moy Mackay's piece that includes sheep.