The Dodo Blog

A good wool layout is essential for many reasons. It’ll give your work stability, and it’ll guarantee your felt is even. It’s also the secret to a fine drapable piece with a beautiful finishing.

Here’s a video showing you exactly how to create the perfect layout. If you don’t feel confident with this part of felting yet, why not spend some time just making samples to practice.

You don’t have to waste any wool with this exercise. You could just pre-felt the samples and use these pieces of pre-felt for future projects.

I’m really excited about this week’s topic because I find there aren’t many wet felters exploring it. And that’s the usage of batts for wet felting.

Batts are more commonly used in needle felting, but they’re definetely worth exploring in wet felting too.

When applied right, batts can:

• save you so much time and effort, since the layout is a lot less laborious than it is for tops
• help you achieve a more even layout

Also, if you're open to wet felting with batts as well as tops, you'll have a wider choice in colors, since often suppliers have a different color palett for batts and tops. And, in my experience, they produce a felt that is a bit different from the one made with tops: less shiny but smoother.

These are 3 new lessons about 3 different ways to lay wool batts, when to use them, as well as the advantages of working with them.

So, if this is something that sparks interest for you, you can access this week’s lessons by signing up for the Free Felting Membership, The D...

Yes! That's right. I've been working on a free felting membership and it's now available for you to enjoy :)

You see, I’ve been blogging and vlogging about wet felting for over a decade. And what I’ve noticed is that in those formats, it’s easy to lose track of what I’ve already covered since the information is scattered everywhere.

I also wanted a place where you could ask me questions in a way that other felters could also benefit from the answers. So, after considering the pros and cons of the different platforms, I decided this would be the best way to have everything under the same roof.

It's called The Dodo Sandbox because it's a place for you to play, experiment and grow your felting skills :)

The membership area is divided into the “core training” and different chapters or modules, each dedicated to a different topic. When you enter the members’ area, that’s exactly what you see.

Of course, I’ll be creating new modules about other topics as I see what your needs are. And...

After finally relaxing from the experience of confinement and COVID, I returned to work at the beginning of September. My 2 weeks break took me to the Camino de Santiago - the Camino Frances - where I was surrounded by Nature and quiet.

Maybe that's what made me want to start felting flowers again :) So, I picked up some of my short video workshops and did a total makeover, converting them into a NEW flower jewelry and hair accessories course.

I had lots of fun exploring shape and color, and I created very simple, as well as more sophisticated flowers.

If you find this an interesting topic, I invite you to take a look at the class details. Registration opens tomorrow, September 25th. The course starts on October 2nd and has the duration of 2 weeks.

Feel free to respond to this email if you have any questions.

Talk soon!

If you're following my Instagram account, you know that I've been sharing photos of my new baby items for some time :)

The idea of creating more felted pieces for kids has been on my mind for long. I just think it's the perfect medium for babies: soft wool and silk, natural non-toxic fibers, environmentally friendly materials, washable and long lasting products. Just perfect!

In the past I've created workshops on baby hats, play food and - one of my best sellers - baby booties. I wanted to expand this collection with more complex pieces that could also allow me to work with more advanced felting techniques. And that's what I've been preparing for the last couple of months: an online course on how to wet felt your baby's booties and jackets.

This is a 3-week, step-by-step video course, that walks you through all you need to know to felt your baby's booties and jackets in 3 different sizes, 3 design variations and 3 felting techniques. It includes:

• Booties' downloadable pattern in
...

I often get questions about felting in the comment section of my YouTube channel. Yesterday, one came up that I thought deserved a longer answer. Since it’s a frequently asked question, it made sense to me to write a blog post on the topic.

Here’s what Kathleen McKinney wanted to know: “How do you know if you’ve felted and fulled enough? How do you know when an item is finished?”

As it’s often the case in wet felting, I have to start by saying that it depends on what you’re making.

The general answer would be “do the pinch test”. If you pinch the surface of your felt and the fibers don’t lift any more, that means your felt is ready (see video).

But there’s more to it than that, so let’s go into more details for different items:

• Felted ball – If you’re felting a ball, I recommend you do the “bounce test” to make sure it’s ready. More on that in this blog post.
• Pre-felt – If you’re making a pre-felt, you don’t want it to be completely felted, because you might want to have it
...

There are thousands of ways you can decorate a wet felted project. Some just involve wool, others can include silk or other fabrics, as you know. This is then called Nuno felting. But today I bring you a sample that contains wool, silk and something else.

I wanted to show you an example of how you can use a transparent piece of silk to hold any type of synthetic material, that wouldn’t otherwise attach to wool. In this case, I’ll be using a pre-felt and a piece of white silk chiffon with the same size as the pre-felt. Alternatively, you can lay merino wool tops or batts, and use light gauze instead of silk.

TIP # 1 – USE LIGHT GAUZE INSTEAD OF SILK TO MAKE YOUR EXPERIMENTS CHEAPER

I’m also using circles of a synthetic golden fabric (that doesn’t attach to wool), but you can choose countless other materials like small beads or sequins, for example.

If you’re making a sample, please remember to measure the size of the wool now and after shrinkage.

TIP # 2 – ALWAYS MEASURE YOUR SAM...

Are you going crazy with the ‘what is what’ in terms of the wool for felting?

I do my best to avoid insider lingo, but the truth is there’s no escaping. You’ll just have to learn a couple of new terms when it comes to this. Otherwise you risk not getting the right materials for your projects. So here is some of the terminology you’re bound to hear if you’re taking on felting:

Raw fleece is what you call the wool when it’s right off the animal and unwashed (that means dirty and greasy). This is not something you can normally get, unless you buy directly from a sheep farm.

Scoured fleece has been washed to remove lanolin and dirt, but it still has the lock structure. I use it to fill pillows or for doll’s hair, for example.

Wool batts, wool batting or carded wool is very similar to quilt batting. It’s the result of removing the debris from the wool with a machine that breaks up the lock structure, and then going through the carding machine. The carder brushes and blends the fibers ...

I’ve been working in a new video workshop, which I hope to finish and post in the next couple of weeks. And the video tutorial I bring you today will be part of this workshop.

I wanted to share it with you, because I know there are so many questions about how to make a pre-felt.

Hope you enjoy it!

Talk to you soon!

Am I happy to be back!!!

What started out as a couple of technology problems, ended up as a great example of Murphy’s Law. After having taken my tablet – where I store eBooks, notes, my calendar, and all sorts of information – to repair, my Internet stopped working, I had huge difficulties in getting it fixed because it’s August (and everything stops in August), and – last but not least – my laptop started giving me problems.

So, I convinced myself it was time to take it easy, and just let things take care of themselves. And, in the process, I had to skip a week of posting here.

But I’m back to stay! And I’m back with something new. I wanted to try a new format to answer some of the most frequent questions about felt, that don’t require showing a process on video.

So, today I’m going to dive into the following questions:

• What’s a pre-felt?
• How do you make it?
• Why does it matter?

A felted piece that isn’t completely felted is called a pre-felt, so it’s just the stage before ...