Tobacco

How can I tell if something is felted? It's a wool coat that was kind of boucle when I bought it. I have other coats that are a really smooth wool but this is rougher more rustic coat by Gap. The softer one is a nice men's dress coat.

I'm wondering if it's just the look of the coat or what would make two different wool textures.

When wool becomes felted it also shrinks A LOT. You should know by looking at it.

2007-10-29 13:57:49 by suggir_bear

A CrunchyParent.com video tutorial demonstrating a variety of wet felting techniques used to make a 100% wool ball, perfect for gentle indoor play ...

I have a pattern that calls for felted wool. I would like to know if the felts are the same or are they processesd or made different. Is the one at walmart wool?

The one at WalMart is generally not wool. At fabric stores they sometimes carry both wool and poly felts. Check the end of the fabric bolts and it should say what it is made of. If you are buying the squares (even though they are actually rectangles) they are most likely not wool but the poly.

Some Joann's and Hancock's will carry the wool felt but I have not used them so I don't know if they are the same quality as what they carry in the quilt stores.

If it can hold up to an iron, it's wool. Otherwise, it's poly of some sort. (when testing, make sure you use a press cloth or be prepared to clean your iron!)

2006-12-14 07:27:16 by mom of 2

If you are knitting the pincushion, make sure you are not using a superwash wool. The fibers have been treated with a chemical to make sure that they do not shrink.

But if you are using other types of wool or animal fibers, wash the item in very hot water and make sure that your agitate your project. This shrinks the hairs and makes them stick together causing a fabric very similar to felt. That's why it's called felting.

2007-02-19 16:00:18 by ladybugjan

I have a felted wool vest. Can I re-wet it and sort of reshape/stretch it, or is that possible after it's been made? If it's possible, do I need to do the whole felting process again, or just wet it (I assume with hot water) and gently stretch?
Thank you for any assistance.
Dejawog

Sometimes you can reshape it if the fibers have not set themselves ie its been through the wash a dozen times or so...then you can not do much too it with out quick drying it and then well shirkage is inevitable if not watching it to carefully it could shirk to quickly. Wool is very touchy of a material.

Re wetting it thoroughly with hot water then gentle stretching it and leaving it to dry in that shape is possible it needs to fully dry in that shape. I found that if one does a hot re-wetting with some fabric softener with it diluted of course can help with the gentle stretching process.

Usually you can tell by feel if wool will re-stretch or not if you can tug on it while it is dry and there is some give to the material then you can probably re-stretch it.

Hope that helps a bit also you may want to do a google search for directions on proper wool stretching if you are not certain about it or heck you could even go to a fabric store and ask on of those nice ladies about the vest specifically. Good luck and cheers!!

2008-10-19 16:44:34 by dejawog@sbcglobal.net

2008-05-21 02:46:35 by Heide B

I would like to recycle wool sweaters into felted wool mittens. I've never tried this technique so I've been reading up on felting. But what I'd like to know is if you need a felting mittens pattern or do you felt the sweaters first, then make the mittens? And how do I get the sweaters not to completely unravel when I cut them up?
I just tried but sweaters were in wash for about 30 minutes and no felting looked like it was going on to me.

I would felt* first, then cut the pattern out. Felted wool won't ravel, and it's pretty stiff.

Do you know how to felt? A high pH laundry detergent meant for cottons really helps... Tide, Bold, Whisk, etc...

*Technically, getting a knitted sweater to mat down is actually "fulling". Felting is making a non-woven fabric by entangling the fibers.

2008-08-28 15:41:19 by pdw901