So what is HANDMADE FELT, anyway?

Scroll down the page to explore felting in various ways.

Felt is not a textile where the primary structure is knitted, woven, crocheted or knotted.

Felt is both a noun and verb; felt, the textile (fabric), can be created by either “wet felting” or “needle felting” (dry felting) or a combination of both.

Felt is loose wool or other animal fiber that is made into a textile with a haphazard fiber structure by using a combination of some of the following: pressure, agitation, water, soap, heat and needles.

Wet felting is a two staged process: felting occurs first by using moisture, pressure and/or agitation to form a loose textile(soft felt) where the fibers have become enmeshed; fulling then occurs by applying further agitation and/or pressure, and perhaps heat which causes the “soft felted” textile to shrink and become firmer.

Nuno-felt (laminated felt) is wool or other animal fiber enmeshed or embedded into nonhaphazard textile (such as woven, crocheted, knotted or knitted silk, cotton, rayon, or wool) using the wet felting process.

Needle felting is a technique which uses barbed needles to entangle loose wool or animal fiber into a cohesive textile structure.

 

Watch Northeast Feltmakers Guild member Ellen Silberlicht explain how to felt:

Watch Northeast Feltmakers Guild member Renate Maile-Moskowitz talk about her felting:

Watch, as just a few thousand miles away, felter and dirty pot eco-dyeing instructor Nicola Brown of Clasheen, Ireland takes new felters on a tour with her felting roadmap.

 

Watch Northeast Feltmakers Guild member Ellen Silberlicht explain the tools used to felt:

 

Watch Northeast Feltmakers Guild member Tshen Shue demonstrate loop making: