What you don't know...
WHERE DO I FIND WOOL TO BEGIN FELTING?
I am often asked where to find fibers with which to felt, and the answer is simple-EVERYWHERE! First and foremost-look local. Your community extension office or 4H club may have listings for fiber producers in your area, you may find fiber producers at your local farmers market or fiber festivals, and your community, or one nearby, may have a fiber guild. All of these are excellent resources to provide you with local fiber. Second-look to etsy.com or artfire.com for independent fiber producers. Some of my favorite sellers are the following: Treasure Goddess is a dear friend, and while her main...
How do you paint with wool?
What you see in the picture above is the first felt ‘painting’ I created shortly after I discovered felting more than a decade ago. I had been looking for more and more ways to create felt and had come across a couple of felt artists online whose work I greatly admired: Jan Waller and Moy Mackay. Jan’s work is fun and full of life-often featuring a figure at play or her daughter. I love her vibrant colors and the sense of whimsy evident in her work. I was delighted to meet Jan at a workshop in Wisconsin several years...
The difference between Craft Felt & Wool Felt
When I am asked if I use craft felt in any of my classes, I like to let my students know what the differences are between craft felt and wool felt. For starters, craft felt is created with manmade fibers, mostly plastic and synthetic fibers, which have been needled and/or heat processed to cause the fibers to adhere to one another. Wool felt is made primarily or entirely from natural animal fibers, mostly, sheep wool. Wool felt is more expensive than craft felt, and for good reason: animals require care and feeding in order to produce their wool over and...
How Felting Works
HOW DOES FELTING WORK? Felting is the process of connecting fibers to form a non-woven fabric. You can create felt either through the use of barbed felting needles or by using soapy water and friction to encourage the fibers to tangle together. Needle felting causes the fibers to tangle when they are plunged through wool or other fibers. Wet felting can only be done with animal fibers which have not been treated with a process called superwash to keep them from felting. You CAN use plant and other fibers sparingly with the wool, alpaca or other animal fibers, but...
Spine Surgery knocked GenCon OUT!
I’ll be launching something cool this fall, and if you want to have access to me for felting classes, tips and tricks, special events, etc., then head over to www.stabthingsintoexistence.com and leave your email address. My friends who give me their emails will be the FIRST in line for this new project, The FELTit Experience.