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| Felting with Icelandic Wool Our 10 year old daughter, Mikaela recently spent an afternoon felting some Icelandic (from a batt) with her friend,Yael. They each made a purse, that they decorated with their own needle felted flowers. Following is a photo diary of their felting process -- easy enough for children to follow! The beauty of Icelandic wool is that it felts SO fast, that a project is easy and quick -- not time consuming and hard on the hands. |
| The girls used one of my 1 lb. felting batts (Icelandic) and cut a piece to fit one of the "lingerie" bags that were on hand. After cutting it to fit, they laid the batt into the lingerie bag. |
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| Next they went to the bathtub where they had a felting board ready, with soap & hot water. |
| At left, Mikaela is pouring hot water onto the felt batt. Center, Yael is squeezing out some dishwashing liquid onto the wet batt. Then the fun begins. The girls started to rub and agitate the wool, getting it nice and sudsy. In under 10 minutes, the wool had shrunk and bound to itself and they were ready to put it into the dryer for further shrinking. |
| At left the girls are putting the batt into the dryer. After about 10 minutes, they take it out and now have a sheet of "felt" to use as a start for their creativity. They decided to make felted purses, so they repeated the process and made one more sheet,so they each would have one to work with. After sewing and then needle felting the purses together, they added needle felted flowers and colored accents. They also braided and felted handles for their purses. The finished purses are shown above right and below. |
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| Icelandic wool is also wonderful for needle felting techniques. Mikaela has been making felted cat toys. If you would like a hand felted toy/ball for your cat (or dog), let me know. They are priced at $5 each. With or without a small bell felted inside. |