Sue’s top tips for felting beginners

We love a bit of craft… do you?  So today we enjoy a lesson in felting from Sue Pearl from The Amazings.

Felting is a process of separating, tangling and relocking animal fibres using materials such as yarn or wool. By felting, you can create a whole range of products as you can treat felt like a thickened piece of material.

Sue has kindly shared her top three tips for felting beginners, you can head to her tutorials to take a look and try it for yourself!

1. Start with something simple like a felt picture. Using wool to create pictures is a very organic process and even if it has no definite pictorial image just using different colours can create the most beautiful of patterns and can look just like a piece of modern art.

2. Making a good piece of felt depends so much on the type of wool fibre you use. The best for a beginner is the wonderful merino wool, 21microns to 18 microns is the right count. There are lots of good wool suppliers in Australia selling the best wool for felting. One such website is www.fibrefusion.com.au To make a really good stable piece of felt you will need to lay three nice layers of fibres, finely (but definitely) covering the plastic bubble wrap with each layer direction crossing the one beneath. Then just lay your picture pieces down on these layers and felt away.

3. Don’t go and buy expensive equipment. Don’t listen to the salesmen. All you need is a towel, plastic bubble wrap, some nice olive oil soap without any moisturisers in, a dog brush if you have one for blending the wool colours, an old bamboo blind and a plastic drink bottle with holes punched in the screw lid to hold the felting solution (soap and water).

Sue currently offers two classes on The Amazings, Needle felting furry friends and Wet wool felting.

Have you tried felting before? What did you make?