Felt making Part II

The weekend before last I was at the home of my friends John and Val Lord of http://www.flintknapping.co.uk/ and they were having a family gathering as their daughter Gina was over from Canada for a couple of weeks.

One of their other daughters (Steff) showed me a really nice felt bag she had made and I told her about my failed attempt to make a bag here. Steff offered to teach me how to make a felt bag and as it was something Gina had never done, she was also keen to give it a go. We would be using pre-died and prepared wool this time.

The first task was to design a shape and then cut out a pattern to work the wool around.

Once the shape was cut out, one side had to be lightly covered with wool, ensuring all the fibres were laid in the same direction.

Then using soap and warm water the wool was dampened

and bubble wrap placed over it and with soapy hands the bubble wrap was gently rubbed to start manipulating the wool.

The pattern was turned over with the first layer of wool now face down and the process was repeated, folding in any wool that overhung the edge of the pattern. Then the whole lot was turned over, but this time a second layer of wool was added with the fibres laid at 90 degrees the the first layer and again the wool was wetted, bubble wrap laid over and gently manipulated to start the process of interlocking the fibres and different layers. In total three layers were added and after the bubble wrap was removed for the last time, the wool (particularly the edges) was worked with soapy hands. At this stage we cut open the top of the bag and removed the pattern and continued to manipulate the wool to help the fibres interlock. At this point the wool fibre layers could still be pulled apart with the fingers and needed to be "hardened".

To do this the wool was rinsed in clean water to remove all the soap, then put into hot water and then manipulated very vigorously which required great effort and concentration!

Being serenaded by John helped to relax us as we worked (more about John's musical talents later in the week)

and the transformation in the wool during this process was quite amazing and at the end, it was impossible to pull any of the wool apart.

For some reason my bag shrunk considerably more than Gina's and ended up more like a woollen cup than a bag!

I must concede that Gina made the better bag which isn't surprising when she demanded most of Steff's attention and in fact Steff did most of the work for her!! (though I'm not bitter), but I was still impressed with my end result and as you can see below our tutor was very pleased with our work too!!

(sorry Steff....had to do it!)

Felt making

Inspired by this video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0uojUHYdA
I decided to have a go at making a felt bag.

A friend supplied me with some sheep's fleece and I began by beating it with a stick to break up the wool, add air and make it more fibres.


I then pulled the fibres between my thumb and forefinger to break it further and remove and crap.

The wool on the left has been processed and the the wool on the right hasn't.

Between each layer of wool (to which I applied soapy water) I put a layer of leaves to prevent the two layers combining together (next time I will remove the thick central rib before using them).

I covered the top layer with my insect net and then rolled the whole thing up.

I rolled it for about 30 minutes and manipulated it with my feet.

I removed the netting and leaves and left the wool to dry.

Here is the end result.

I did not use a sufficient thickness of wool so it is very thin in places and the edges of the two pieces did not combine well but the end result is better than I was expecting and I'm sure my felting skills will get better with practice.

Taking the pith

The other evening I was discussing with Torjus methods of removing the pith from species such as Elder. I have been experimenting with making a threaded piece of wood to use to drill out the pith.

First I removed the bark from a piece of wood, then I scored a spiral around it and cut either side of the score mark to form the thread.

I pushed the point of the thread into the pith of a piece of Elder and started to turn it and the pith started to come out.

I only had Hazel available to make the thread and broke two of them just boring about 15cm, but using something like a piece of Oak might be more affective.

One for Mungo

Earlier this year I spent two weeks in Canada working with survival instructor Mors Kochanski,


working with schools in British Columbia, teaching children of various ages about nature and basic survival skills.

We taught them shelter building, navigation, plant identification and their uses and a variety of native crafts.