About Felting
There are two techniques for felting: wet felting and needle felting. Both use wool roving to build something. Common wool roving types for felting include Merino, Corriedale, and Blue-faced Leicester. Merino is very fine and soft, ideal for delicate work and blending, while Corriedale is a good all-purpose wool with a crimp that felts quickly. Blue-faced Leicester is also soft and can be used for detailed projects but is less common for needle felting. Sometimes silk fibers are added in wet felting, but they must be utilized within the wool fibers in order to became part of the fabric.
Wool fibers have minute scales on them. When wool is carded, the fibers are lined up and the scales line up as well. By mixing and agitating the fibers together and forcing those scales to interlock, a fabric is created. This can be done through two techniques: wet felting and needle felting.
Wet felting is an ancient textile method, potentially dating back to the Neolithic period or as far back as 6500 BCE, where wool fibers are matted and interlocked using hot, soapy water and agitation to form a single piece of felt.
This versatile, early wet felting technique was used by nomadic cultures for essential items like clothing, tents, and insulated footwear. Later, industrial machines were used in the 19th century to mass-produce felt for items like carpets and insulation.
Needle felting has not been used as extensively for utilitarian objects as wet felting. The history of needle felting began with ancient wet felting that utilized water, soap, and agitation to felt the wool. Needle felting provides the same result, but uses special needles with sharp barbs on them that grab the wool fibers and push them against the other fibers, causing the scales on the wool fibers to interlock. Large felting machines with many needles were developed in the 19th century to create felt for mass-produced items like carpets, padding, and insulation.
From these industrial felting machines came the modern artistic form, which emerged in the 1980s. Artists can use a single needle or a group of needles together in a holder to punch the fibers into each other. Use of a single needle allows for fine details to be added to the form.