Felting

Bookmark created with wet felting method.

Cactus created by dry felting method.

Dry Felting

A simple process that involves poking dry felt with a felting needle to create shapes/balls that become small animal figurines or other shapes. The barbs on the felting needle grab the fibers and pull them together as you poke.

Materials

Felt

Felting Needle

Styrofoam or 2” Section of a Pool Noodle

Process

Gather wool into a ball and begin poking it with the felting needle. It helps to have styrofoam or a cut pool noodle underneath for the needle to poke through to. Continue poking to gather the fibers together until the wool is in the shape and size you want. Add new color and shapes the same way.

Wet Felting

A process that layers sheep’s wool felt to create a flattened piece of fabric. There are endless color combinations and you can create bookmarks, book covers, scarves, blankets or even hats.

Materials

  • water

  • olive oil soap

  • clean sponge

  • bamboo mat

  • mesh fabric

  • sheep’s wool

  • Hand towel

  • Bath towel

Process for Felt Bookmark

  1. Select wool colors and pull off pieces.

  2. Layer the colors/wool strips in overlapping stripes on top of the bamboo mat.

  3. Add a tiny amount of soap to a bowl full of warm water.

  4. Soak the sponge in the soapy water.

  5. Place the mesh over the felt.

  6. Wet the felt with the sponge by pressing it into the mesh, in the center of the felt.

  7. Press down and work out toward the edges of the felt, pressing the air out. Flip to other side & repeat.

  8. Once all the felt is flattened and dampened, wet your hands and press lightly on the mesh + felt and rub in circles for five minutes. Flip & repeat.

  9. Place the hand towel under the bamboo mat, which has the felt and mesh on top. Roll the entire thing up.

  10. Once rolled, rock and roll the bundle 20 times. Unroll, turn the felt 90 degrees, and repeat. Continue until repeated on every edge, on both sides (8 times total).

  11. Unroll, remove the mesh and take the felt between wettened hands. Rub the felt between palms until felt seems cohesive.

  12. Cut to desired size and shape. Use during your next read!

Classroom Application

Dry felting would have to be used in middle or high school classroom due to the use of the needle. That being said, I think the creations with dry felting appeal more to younger students. Therefore, I would likely not use dry felting in my classroom.

Wet felting could be done in elementary classes, as long as students are capable of following several directions and have patience. From my perspective, this depends more on class personality than age. Wet felting is a difficult technique for making complicated and exciting products. For that reason I would probably not use this method in a class room either.

The one way I imagine using either method is doing a class collaboration project. Maybe we make several wet felting “patches” and attempt to combine them into a larger blanket. For dry felting, maybe the class create a tiny world and everyone contributes characters with the dry felting technique. We could even create a “landscape” for the characters using wet and dry felting methods (plants/trees with dry, ground, grass, water with the wet.)