Feltmaking

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Introduction
Feltmaking is the process of making fabric from wool fibre without spinning or weaving. Felt is a fantastic fabric which is warm, wind and water repellent; naturally fire repellent, sound proof and shock absorbing. Wool is the fibre which has the best natural ability to felt and other plant, synthetic and animal fibres can be blended with wool to make felt.
There are many different folk tales about when and how it was discovered that wool could felt. One story is about the son of the King of Solomon who really wanted to make fabric from wool without having to spin and weave it. One day unable to solve the problem he had a tantrum, crying and jumping up and down on his sheepskin rug. When he had calmed down he discovered the wool on his sheepskin rug had turned to felt! A number of other stories are based around men who have travelled for miles, and have sore feet, picking wool of thorn bushes and putting it in their boots for extra padding. When they arrived at their destination and took their boots off the wool had felted.

History of Felt.
Felt was the first fabric created from wool because it can be made anywhere without any special equipment, this was essential when all people were nomadic. Archaeologists have found neolithic felt in Turkey and examples of Early bronze age felt caps from 2000-800BC in Denmark and Germany. The best examples of felt were found in the Altai Mountains in Russia, in the frozen stone burial chambers of tribe chiefs. The cold conditions preserved a range of organic materials including felt. Over 30 items of felt were found, including cushions, rugs and felt art, the colours and patterns on the items gave an insight into the way of life of these people.
Felt continues to be used for every day purposes but did not become at popular form of art in the west until the 1960s when contemporary textile artists started to experiment with it.

Living with felt.
For nomadic people with a ready supply wool, felt is an important material in their life their clothes, bags, saddle cloths and home were made of felt. Felt makes excellent clothes, in cold Scandinavia and Norway felt was used for boots, coats hats, baby clothes and even nappies. The dense fabric repels water from sea spray or rain and keeps out the wind. Felt can be moulded into a variety of 3d shapes and can be used to make seamless hats, different tribes or groups were often identified by a specific type of hat. Today policeman in Russian wear felt boots and in Turkey shepherds wear kepeneks (cloaks). Felt can also be moulded into seamless bags used to carry possessions as tribes travelled around.
Yurts are still covered with felt and contain felt furnishings such as rugs, blankets, sleeping mats and cushions.

Why does wool felt?
The individual wool fibres are covered with small scales. When water and pressure ( from rubbing) are applied during the felt making process the scales open up and the fibres tangle together. As the feltmaking process continues the wool shrinks permanently locking the fibres together.

Wool for feltmaking
Some wools felt better than others as a general rule of thumb the greater the amount crimp in a fleece the better it will. felt. Wool has to be washed and carded before it can be felted and it is easier to felt from carded tops. I have found the best wool to felt with for bags, rugs and pictures is Shetland Tops, for cobweb felt or felt scarves Blue Faced Leicester and for structural felt and rugs Cheviot and Swaledale.