The Dodo Blog

Last week we started talking about ways to use color in our wet felting projects. We had a look at the color wheel, and at primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

We also spoke about the two easiest ways to create color schemes without having to elaborate too much on any combination and to always get it right: monochromatic and warm/cool color schemes.

Until now, it was easy-peasy. Right?

Now, there are thousands of ways I could make this complicated. But that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. I know I shied away from color theory for years because – not having studied art – I just found it too daunting.

And it makes sense when you’re mixing paint and trying to obtain an exact color. But that’s not what we do as felt makers. For us crazy fiber lovers, color is meant to bring out the beauty of our pieces by creating harmony. We don’t need that much detail.

So – after the disclaimer – let’s dive into part 2 of my version...

While some people are great with this – either because they have an intuition for color or because they’ve studied art – many of us find it difficult to combine colors to get the harmonious results we want. Even if you’re a natural at this, I’ve personally found that it’s something you can always improve on.

To help you create palettes that convey what you want for your pieces, as well as to give you ideas of how you can mix wool to attain a particular shade, I’m creating a short series on this topic. For that, we need to start at the beginning, with the color wheel.

I’m sure you have an understanding of the color wheel. But do you use it when you choose the colors for your projects? And in which ways can you use it to create color palettes or to convey particular feelings? This is an excellent tool to help you with your decisions if you know how to take advantage of it.

The color wheel is a color circle created to illustrate the...

If you’ve been in my felting world for some time, you’ve heard me talking about this book for sure. It’s one of my absolute favorites in my collection.

If you’ve just recently discovered my blog, and you’re as obsessed about felting books as I am, there’s still time to add it to your Christmas presents wish list :)

I’m talking about “How I Felt”, a book about the work of the late Christine Birkle.

There are many felt makers I admire. But after over 20 years of looking at other artists’ work, Christine Birkle is still number one for me.

She founded the label HUT UP in Berlin in the 90s and was an absolute pioneer of modern wet felting. She has created many of the designs that inspired much of what is currently around in our field.

I was extremely lucky to have come across her work in Berlin in the early 2000s and have spent many hours admiring her pieces live in her shop in Berlin.

I’ve always been fascinated by...

Do you ever have moments of taking a glimpse at your felting table and thinking “OMG, look at all this plastic”? It’s happened to me often, so I’ve been trying to substitute it for other materials whenever I can. And I’ve also been thinking about writing a couple of tips for the felt makers who are interested in reducing plastic, but don’t know what to use instead.

I find fighting plastic usage extremely difficult. Plastic is everywhere, and it’s so ingrained in our daily habits too. But I feel like if I’m conscious about it, there’s at least a way to avoid some of it.

Anyway, after ordering a couple of issues of the German felting magazine FilzFun, I was very excited when I saw an article about this exact topic in one of them, intitled “Filzen ohne Plastik” (Felting without Plastic). It was written by felt maker Corinna Nitschmann and I find it has a lot of great ideas, some of which I had never thought about. So,...

In 20 years of felt making I haven’t (yet!) had any issues with moths. It may just have been luck or because of the way I store my wool. It’s definitely not because I don’t have tons of wool in my studio

Since I frequently get questions about how I store my wool, as well as how to prevent moth attacks, I’ve compiled what I know and what I could find from different sources to offer you information that hopefully can protect your stash from these pesky little fiber predators.

A SHORT WORD ON THE LITTLE CREATURES

There are many types of moths, and most of them are harmless for wool. So, as most felt makers know, we’re talking about the so called “clothes moths” here.

Moths go through four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. But it’s only in the larvae stage that they feed on fiber.

Keratin is what they’re after. This is a protein found in animal-based materials like wool, fur, hair, feathers, mohair, and even silk. If...

"Filzen: Alte Tradition, Modernes Handwerk" (German version)

"Felt: New Directions for an Ancient Craft" (English version)

by Gunilla Paetau Sjöberg

This might be the best book about wet felting I have. And I do have many

It’s over 20 years old, it doesn’t have amazing photos and it has a lot of text. So, it might not be the first book to grab your attention when you look at my bookshelf.

I have it in German, but there’s also an English version.

So then, what makes it so special?

I think it’s the most complete wet felting book I’ve ever seen. I could call it a felting encyclopedia.

Let’s have a look inside, so that you can see what I mean.

It starts with an incredibly complete History of felt and it covers different felting traditions found in Europe and Asia: from hat making in Hungary and shepherd coats in Turkey, to the felt masks worn by the Vikings, and socks and shoes made in Sweden, Norway, and Finland.

It then dives into felting...

Today I’m going to talk about how to felt with wool batts. And I’m looking into a couple of questions in particular:

• Is there a direction to the fiber in wool batts?
• Do wool batts shrink as much as wool tops?

I know there are different opinions about the direction of the fiber in wool batts. So, I thought it would make sense to test it and see what happens.

While I’ve been working with batts for a very long time, I’ve always mixed them with tops in my work. So, I had never really looked into this in detail.

Adding to that, I often get questions about how to work with batts. That’s why I decided to make these samples and see how the wool behaves.

I hope you find them useful for your work. I’d also love to know if you agree with me or not.

So, feel free to comment or to drop me an email on this.

I’ve often been asked for tips on how to wet felt when you have health issues like back pain or arthritis.

Personally, I’ve also dealt with pain that was either caused or worsened by the strain I’ve put on my body due to wrong postures during wet felting.

It’s irrefutable that felting is a very physical activity that can be hard on your muscles and joints. But it’s also true that you can protect yourself by paying more attention to certain details when you’re working.

In today’s video, I go into how to keep a good posture during the layout phase. If you find this useful, stay tuned to part 2, where I go into my tips for the felting and fulling phase.

P.S.: If you’re a healthcare professional (and would like to help) or just have more tips to add, please send me an email with that information. I’ll make sure I add it to a future video, so that everybody can take advantage of that knowhow. Thank you!

Are you having issues getting your wet felted bowl to have a perfectly round shape? Or maybe you’ve felted a flat round piece, but, after fulling, it doesn’t look like a circle anymore? Your layout may be the cause of this distortion.

Wet felting doesn’t have many rules, so it allows for different ways to get to the desired results.

But it does have a few. And understanding these is fundamental to get to the shapes you want:

• The direction of the fibers determines the way felt shrinks, and so its final shape.
• The direction of the fibers determines in which directions it stretches.

If you’re laying out fiber for a circular object – like a bowl, for example – you’d probably want the shrinkage to be the same in every direction, right? You’d also want it to stretch equally in all directions.

So, laying it out in the classic way wouldn’t give your felt these qualities. Instead – because it would produce a felt that...

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve been looking at the topic of resists. But the focus was more on what you need to know at the beginning of your wet felting journey.

If, instead, you’re a more seasoned felt maker, you might be facing other issues, like what to do with the piles of resists and paper templates you collect along the years.

As you need more resists for your projects, you’ll start collecting them in all shapes and sizes. And, most probably, what’ll happen after a while is that you no longer know what some of them were for. At least, that’s what’s happened to me

To avoid this, I recommend you create a pattern archive. This is what I’ve started doing some time ago, after things became really chaotic.

I now have a system that works really well. So, if you want to give it a try, here are my tips on how to organize your resists and patterns.

Create 3 templates:

1. The original pattern drawn on paper. On this one you write:...