The Dodo Blog
How to make your own prefelts
As we’ve seen last week, a prefelt is a partially felted piece of wool felt. That means, it’s made in the exact same way as a piece of felt. The only difference is the degree to which it’s compacted.
I usually make my prefelts by wet felting Merino tops. For some projects, I have also needle felted wool batts. This second method is a way of imitating the industrial prefelts. But I find it’s only a good option for small projects.
What do you need to pay attention to when making a prefelt to use in other projects?
1. Evenness
It’s important to create your prefelts with an even thickness. If this is difficult for you, start by training your layout skills.
Do you need help with this? You can find everything you need to train your layout skills in the blog post “Resources To Help You Perfect Your Layout”. (Click link or image to access!)
2. Thickness
The thickness of your prefelt will depend on which projects you’ll be applying it...
What are prefelts? Commercial vs. handmade prefelts
Years ago, I wrote a couple of blog posts about prefelts, but there are many details I didn’t mention back then. Since I still get a lot of questions about the topic, I thought it would make sense to write a new, more complete and up to date series.
This first part caters to new felt makers, who I know are often a bit confused about prefelts.
If you’re more experienced, this won't be new to you. But, as I explore the topic further, there'll be more details that may be useful for you too. So, I recommend keeping an eye on the rest of the series, if this is a topic that interests you.
We’ll start by looking at what prefelts are, and then talk about how and when to use them. So, let's dive in!
WHAT ARE PREFELTS?
As the name suggests, a prefelt is a partially felted piece of wool felt. In other words, it’s simply a stage in the wet felting process before the fibers fully compact.
That, of course, means a prefelt can be further felted. And that is precisely...
Free Easter felting tutorial
This year, make your Easter gifts extra special!
Here’s a sweet tutorial to help you gift some extra love this Easter
WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR THE BUNNIES?
That will depend on how many you want to make. So, I’ll just give you the list of materials for 4 bunnies like mine. You can adapt the colors and/or decoration to your own taste.
- 40 cm of green ribbon
- 40 cm of pink ribbon
- 2 small bells
- 2 sew-on strass pieces
- Green and pink thread
- A thin needle (that can pass through the holes of the strass)
- A thimble
- 2 thin felting needles
- Felting foam
- Some white fine merino wool
- 2 thick (about 7 mm thick) sheets of pre-felt (pink and dark brown); each of them should be big enough to cut 2 bunnies
- The pattern
- Some gold and silver thread
INSTRUCTIONS
Start by making the pre-felt with your wool of choice. I can’t say exactly how many layers you need, since that’ll depend on how thick you lay your wool. But 4 should do if you’re working with thick layers.
Cut 2...
New To Wet Felting? These Resources Are For You!
Have you just recently discovered wet felting, and don’t know where to start? I’ve put together a list of resources for you to help you know what to learn next.
START BY MASTERING THE BASIC WET FELTING SHAPES
When people approach me about learning to wet felt, they often tell me they’d like to make scarves and garments, so they’re particularly interested in nuno felting.
But to get to nuno felting and other more demanding techniques, you need to be confident with the basics first.
So, here are the simplest instructions for the 3 basic shapes, whether you would like to work with wool batts or with wool tops.
- Felting a cord with wool tops
- Felting a cord with wool batts
- Felting a ball with wool tops
- Felting a ball with wool batts
- Felting a sheet with wool tops
- Felting a sheet with wool batts
And here are a couple of additional tips that can help you perfect your technique:
