Felt is a textile that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be
made of natural fibers such as wool or synthetic fibers such as acrylic. There are many different types of felts for industrial, technical, designer and craft applications. While some types of felt are very soft, some are tough enough to form construction materials. Felt can vary in terms of fiber’s content, color, size, thickness, density and more factors depending on the use of the felt. Felting methods are the follows:
- Wet felting
Wet felting is one of several methods which can produce felt from wool and other animal fibers. Warm soapy water is applied to layers of animal hairs placed at 90 degree angles to one another. Repeated agitation and compression causes the fibers to hook together into a single piece of fabric. Wrapping the properly arranged fibere in a sturdy, textured material, such as a bamboo mat or bubble wrap, will speed up the felting process. After the wet felting process is complete, the felted material may be finished by fulling.
- Needle felting
Needle felting is a popular fiber arts craft that creates felt without the use of water. Special needles that are used in industrial felting machines are used by the artist as a sculpting tool. While erroneously referred to as "barbed" needles, they in fact have notches along the shaft of the needle that grab the top layer of fibers and tangle them with the inner layers of fibers as the needle enters the wool. Since these notches face down towards the tip of the needle, they do not pull the fibers out as the needle exits the wool. Once tangled and compressed using the needle, the felt can be strong and used for creating jewellery or sculpture. Finer details can be achieved with this method using a hand-held tool with either a single needle or a small group of needles (2-7), so it is popular technique for producing 2D and 3D felted work.
