The Dodo Blog

THE STORY BEHIND THIS PROJECT

I belong to a small felt club that gets together once a month via Zoom to felt in a group setting.

In our December meeting, the suggestion was that we create seasonal pieces. We usually felt 3D/sculptural items, and that was planned for December as well. But even though we work on a certain topic each month, we do have much creative freedom in the group. So, this time I thought of doing something slightly different.

I have tons of felt leftovers from many projects along the years, and I wanted to do something seasonal by recycling what I already had, instead of producing something entirely new. These bits accumulate with time, and it bothers me to see so much material not be used.

So, I gathered the thicker white felt leftovers (some of which was Nuno felt, which made it even more interesting), as well as some fun “Christmassy” templates I also already had from past projects. And, without having a clear initial idea, I started cutting the...

In over two decades as a felt maker, I’ve been slowly collecting books on felting, to grow my knowledge, get inspiration or just know more about the pioneers of this beautiful art form. My felting library now has over 50 books, some of which I've been sharing with you on my blog and social media channels.

Since so many people have shown interest in my recommendations and in knowing what’s available, I thought you might like to get a list of the top 21 in my wet felting library. Note that some of them are in English, others in German, and some in both languages. Most books that were originally published in German, unfortunately don’t have English translations.

I’ve selected these 21 books based on the quality of the information they provide, the innovative projects they present, as well as their aesthetics. This list is now available here for you to download.

I hope you find this a useful resource. 

Enjoy!

When we start wet felting, there is so much to learn about the many techniques that fit under this wider umbrella, that this alone can be enough for felt makers to focus on, without ever taking a deep dive into the attributes of the fibers from different sheep breeds.

So, often it’s people who have sheep or who live in rural areas, who – early in the process – start looking at how to use the wool of local breeds in their felting, as a way to take advantage of what’s available in their closest environment.

For those of us who live in cities, it’s impractical (or even unthinkable) to buy raw wool, clean it in the bathtub, and do all the processing in an apartment. So, we resort to buying processed wool from suppliers, and so are restricted to the available breeds.

Like me, you may very well be in this second group of felt makers. And, if you are – like me – you probably haven’t spent much time looking at the incredible number of...

I don’t use stiffeners often. But sometimes they can be useful, especially for sculptural wet felting. The problem with stiffeners is finding one that doesn’t make your work very hard, and still lets your felt look natural.

As in many other aspects of felt making, there are different opinions about this. Mine is that using a stiffener should never mean having your work look like plastic, and the stiffener itself should be as natural as possible.

I’ve researched this topic over the years, looking at information from milliners, as well as at solutions from crafters to harden textiles. But I have to say the suggestions I found never quite fit what I was looking for. There’s much online about sugar water or using starches made of corn or wheat flower, as well as several very chemical products used by milliners.

The first idea that made sense to me was a suggestion from a fellow felt maker, who recommended Arabic gum. My research quickly showed me it wasn’t...

Have you ever felted a vessel, a bag or another 3D item and found that you couldn’t get rid of the seams on the sides? Did you wonder why it happened? Did you think that those seams could have been prevented by filling the piece with a balloon or any other object?

If that’s the case, know that the issues started way before the final shaping and drying phase. And so, no filling the piece in the end would have made it flat.

Today I bring you 7 tips that can help!

Once you have those pesky side ridges on your 3D felt, it’s very difficult to get rid of them. Sure, rubbing the seam area can help, but the problem happens in the layout phase, as well as the initial phase of the felting process. So, rubbing won’t completely solve the problem. Let’s have a look at was does help.

IN THE LAYOUT PHASE

There are two things to watch for during the layout phase:

1. The layout on the edge

From my point of view, there are 2 ways you can do the layout on...

You may know that for many years I’ve had a list of suppliers for wool and wet felting equipment that I offer in my courses and as a download on my website. It’s based on my own experience buying wool online, as well as on recommendations from students and followers.

Whether new felt makers email me with the questions or they post them in online forums, I’ve often realized that for many it isn’t clear where to buy felting supplies. So, I created this free guide with two goals: 1) to help you decide among the available suppliers, and 2) to give you a list of recommended suppliers as close as possible to where you live.

But things change rapidly, and I hadn’t updated it for quite some time. When someone emailed me to tell me that a couple of businesses had closed, I thought it was about time I reviewed it and published an updated version.

I asked for the feedback of people who read my newsletter and had an incredible number of responses. As a result, the...

This week I’m answering the question: “How do I make thin felt from 2 layers of wool without getting holes in my felt?”

The way I see it, there may be a couple of different reasons you’re getting holes in your fine felt:

• Your layout is uneven,
• You’re doing your layout on bubble wrap,
• Or you’re using felting/fulling methods that are too aggressive.

When you’re getting an uneven layout, have a look at:

• The quality of your wool,
• The way you’re drafting your fiber,
• And if you happen to have gaps in your layout.

If all of these 3 factors are ok, your problem may be that you’ve done your layout on bubble wrap. Especially if the bubble wrap has very big and tough bubbles, it can create holes or, at least, marks on a thin felt. So, I recommend laying out the wool on a plastic film or piece of fabric.

And, finally, make sure you’re using gentle felting and fulling methods, like the ones I suggest in the video.

If holes in your...

I’m working on a new class that is meant to help felt makers go all the way (smoothly) from total beginner to intermediate. If you’ve recently started wet felting or you’ve been felting for a while, but still feel like there are many gaps in your knowledge, this may be for you.

But I’ll need some time until I can offer it, since I haven’t created it yet. I’m working on the class outline for now. And I’d like to invite you to participate in the creation of the class materials. Just click here or on the image below to access the list of topics. Please let me know which ones are important to you and what you think may still be missing.

Just a last note: I’m considering an intermediate felter, someone who knows all the fundamentals, and is able to confidently felt on a resist, knows how to add fiber, fabric and other materials for embellishment and texture. All this while achieving high quality felt.

Thank you for taking a moment to...

I think the importance of prefelts in wet felting is sometimes underestimated. Prefelts are extremely useful and there’s no end to how you can apply them in your wet felting projects. So, mastering how to make them exactly as you want for a particular piece can massively improve your work.

Let’s have a look at some of the many ways prefelts can be used, as well as a couple of tips to apply them successfully.

PREFELTS FOR NUNO FELTING

In most cases, nuno felted pieces decorated with crisp designs are created with prefelts. But prefelts are a bit more difficult to attach to silk than unfelted wool.

So, to make it work, you need to:

• use thin prefelts,
• felt slowly and gently,
• and work with cold water,

to give the wool fibers time to migrate into the silk.

The most effective felting technique in this case is sanding, since it creates a lot of pressure, that accelerates the fiber migration through the fabric.

If you run into issues, and some parts of your prefelts...

As you may know, I’ve been working on a blog series about prefelts. I’ve started by going into what prefelts are, as well as explaining the differences between commercial and handmade prefelts.

The next post in the series dealt with what you need to pay attention to when making prefelts to use in other projects.

And I’ll finish this collection next week by going deeper into how you can use prefelts, what type of projects you can use them for, as well as the best felting techniques for making them.

But, before that, I wanted to answer the questions that I received from you about this topic. So, today we’ll have a format that’s a bit different from what I usually do: a simple Q&A.

Q: I am very curious about prefelts - especially as a new wet felter. When is something prefelt? Or what is the prefelt stage?  I’d like to create some prefelt in order to place onto my work and felt everything together. How do I do that?

A: A prefelt is...