What Katie Did

Felt magic

Many months ago, my dear friend Holly asked me if I would teach a felt making workshop in November. This was about August and it seemed like a million years in the future so I agreed without thinking too much. And now it is in the past, and I can't work out where the intervening time went?
Yesterday was a wet murky day, just right for spending among like minded people in a lovely place with COLOUR!

Everyone got the hang of the magical process of turning that wonderful soft stuff into a variety of felted item. We were making necklaces and other nice things to wear so there was lots of rolling going on.

 

When you give people the same materials and instructions, I love watching what they do. Combinations of colour that I would never think of, but that work so well.

The bottom left is the row of felted soaps drying

Mind your fingers! Sally gets down to some needle felting here. Matt made his without realising it matched his clothes!

Here is Lara, Lisa and Holly's lunch
and here is mine

and here are a load of happy people wearing damp necklaces and bracelets!

How about some felt making?

I think felt making is a sunny day activity. It must be to do with all that water. And its a sociable one too. Some things are naturally solitary activities, but knitting and felting seem to me to be much more fun in a group. This weekend is turning out to be glorious and Martha the perfect companion. She has been experimenting with making finger puppets - more of that later - I have wanted to make some more 'beads' for a while now and here is the photo journey from fibre to felt.
I made felt balls last year, these beads are made like this.....

First, get yourself set up with a nice big flat surface, a few old towels, a kettle full of boiling water, some nice soap - I use 'wool soap', a bowl with cold water and some wool fibres. I use 'merino tops' from Wingham Wools - over there on my 'supplies' list.

As you know, wool will felt when it is hot, wet, agitated and soapy, so that's what were going to do. It also needs structure, so laying the fibres at an angle to each other works.

Lay more colour in the opposite direction and keep stacking up them up like this until you have a soft pillow of fibres, about five or six layers deep.

A bit of net curtain comes in handy now. Lay it over the top, sprinkle very hot water over and rub with the soap until you can feel that the fibres are all wet and soapy

take the curtain off and roll up the stack like a swiss roll

then roll and roll and roll back and forth - use more hot water and a bit more soap to keep it hot and soapy and feel it start to get firmer

When it is all holding together really well, put it into cold water for a while. This firms it up even more. Then, stick it in the washing machine on a hot wash with some towels - the ones you were using! I made another with more layers - when they come out of the machine they are fantastically firm. Cut them into slices of varying thickness - this can be tricky - you need your biggest, sharpest scissors

When they look like this you put them into a net bag and wash them in the machine again. This must be why you need good weather - to dry all that washing!

then they look like this - very soft and blurry.

That's that - I'll show you what I do with them when I've done it! But maybe you have plenty of ideas of your own?

The fund raising evening was a triumph on many levels. Everyone had a great time, I realised what a fantastic team us knitters have become and we made some money for our target!  To paraphrase Annie 'What's not to like?' 

Enjoy your felting! Here is a glimpse of Martha's work..... more later!

Bank Holiday Felt Balls

This tutorial is for Wendy who asked about making felt balls after I posted my pictures of fleece. So here goes. The first problem I had was photographing a two handed thing - rolling the balls - with one hand, but then Geoff turned up and obliged.
The second problem was handling the camera with wet hands, so there was a lot of drying going on.
Here goes.
Get everything ready first.
Apricots to eat
water to drink
flask with hot water
dish with cold water
soap
towel
fleece

Its nice to have a bit of company and the radio with The Archive Hour about John Betjeman was helpful too.

A word about soap. I used to use washing up liquid, but I heard from somewhere that this is very bad form and one should use posh soap. I acquired this wool fat soap and the tin of laurel and olive oil soap flakes, both of which are malvellous for felt making. (But the washing up liquid always used to work too...)

Felt is made by the action of soap, agitation and hot water on wool fibres. We have all done this by mistake with our favourite jumper on a hot wash. Here we are doing it on purpose.

Tease out a handful of wool fibre. These are 'merino tops' - I buy them from Wingham Wool who do mail order but they were at Woolfest this year. Not sure if they do overseas? You could ask.

 

Roll the wool into a ball, dip it into the hot water - rub soap onto your other hand and roll this hot, soapy, round, soft mass between your hands.

I used to get water and soap everywhere, but this demonstration took place in my shed, which has no water supply, and (are you reading Mum?) there was (almost) no watery mess anywhere!

Now, its not uncommon for a fissure like this to form. I don't like the loo k of this on the finished thing, so I remedy this by applying a small amount of fleece as a sort of 'bandage'

and felting it onto the forming ball.

keep on rolling, applying more pressure as the ball gets firmer. Dip it into hot water and apply more soap if you need to and finally, when the ball is as firm as you want it, dip it into cold water and give it a good rinse.

Make a few more, put them in a sunny window to dry and there you are!

Then I had a go at needle felting dots. This post already has more pictures that my brother likes, so needle felting will have to wait.

Apologies to all of you who know how to do this with your eyes closed, one hand tied behind your back (impossible actually) and the standing on your head..... and for any inaccuracies. This method works for me, but I'll just add this - it can get a bit tedious and I think it would be much more fun with more people!