Needle Felting
The design in the first image was needle felted onto a wool base. Joanie used an old wool coat picked up from the thrift shop! The other images show machine needle felting onto a 100% wool felt base. We created yardage using wool and silk roving and silk hankies. The needle felted yardage was then wet with soapy water, rolled between layers of bubble wrap and gently rolled for approximately 10 minutes. Once the fibres were well felted into the wool, the yardage was gently aggitated in a washing machine for 5 - 10 minutes with hot water. It is important to ensure that this is done very gently and only until desired shrinkage is achieved. The jacket below shrunk about 15% when in the hot water. We then ironed the yardage flat, and using a Burda pattern, created the jacket.
