At our March end of month meet up we made these fantastic felt rolls. Why are they fantastic I hear you asking, well scroll on down to see...
The first thing you do is lay out your fibres. The colour that you lay down first will be the colour of the outside of your roll.
Then build up with as many layers of colours as you want. I think about 6 is a good number. Also between each layer of colour I like to put a contrasting darker colour (black for instance) you'll see why this is a good idea later on.
Wrap your roll around a number of thin timber skewers (the kind that you use for barbeques)
Then roll up tight and use a bamboo matting, seen below to help you start the felting process.
Pull out the sticks before you've felted it too much otherwise they get stuck inside!
There is a LOT of elbow grease involved in these! You want your roll be nice and firm.
When your roll is all felted then its time to get the scissors out
You can see here just how much it shrinks down in size.
When you start to cut into the rolls you can see where all the good stuff is! See in the roll below how the contract of dark and light works really well to define the rings of colour.
Or another option is to lay out really thick layers of fibre at the start (as seen below)
The end result is really dramatic and can be used to make felt jewellery, brooches, embellishments for jackets and much much more.
Have fun felting.
If you are interested in learning more about our group or would like to attend one of our monthly sessions just send us an email on
naasfeltandfibre@gmail.om
-Vanessa
