LJA
Well-Known Member
Kitn asked me to do this and because she's so sweet, I said I would, but I've done this exactly 5 times, so I'm a total newbie. I can only just show you what I did to make the ones in the photo gallery. I suggest watching some YouTube videos from experienced felters. At any rate, here goes nothin'...
I used one 12" piece of 100% wool roving and a scrap of another piece. I hear merino wool is best. I dunno what the hell I have.
The important part is that it's 100% wool. Divide the piece into two even 12 inch pieces about as wide as your soap.
Try to get the fibers "splayed out" as much as you can without big holes in it. Next get a bar of soap. I'm using a fug soap that's great soap, but ended up with some funky issues aesthetically. Don't throw out those abominations (tm Ganiggle). HIDE 'EM!
. Rub the hard edges of your soap on a surface (I'm using a glass cutting board) just so they don't poke through the wool as easily.
Next, lay your soap on the first piece of wool, and starting at one end, wrap the soap like a burrito, until you reach the other end of it. Pig in a blanket style. (anyone else getting hungry?)
Grab the other piece of wool and do the same exact thing except rolling on the other exposed sides of the soap, until your whole soap is covered with wool. Ya with me so far?
Now if you wanna add a splash of color or a shape onto your felted soap, grab a contrasting color piece of wool, and lay it on the wrapped soap in some sort of design that you like. The sucker moves like the dickens so I suggest something simple like a stripe etc. I just did a spiral-y shape.
Fill your sink or a very large bowl with super warm water (hot is better...who needs skin, right?!) and keeping your hands firmly on your design piece of wool and holding the whole thing together so it doesnt unravel, dip your soap/wool into the water. This is a little tricky, at first.
Gently start patting the soap on all sides to get some lather going. I've seen people kickstart it by adding a little dish soap but I didnt find I needed it. Lather lather lather, rub rub rub until you're a crazy person. You have to go slow and gentle until the wool begins to shrink some. As you keep doing this, the wool will begin to tighten around your soap more and more and the fibers will begin to "meld" together. Once this happens, you can scrub harder. I held the bar in one hand and "raked" it over my fingers with the other hand on all sides. I've seen people scrub it on a washboard too. The tricky part is keeping your design piece from migrating all over the bar, and losing it's shape. Just kinda keep a finger on it and rub at the same time. It'll stick eventually. Dip in the hot water every now and again, as the heat helps the shrinkage (as opposed to male parts, which need cold lake water.... :wink: ).
Notice my spiral is now is now elongated and weird. Just manipulate it back to where you want it and keep rubbin'. It takes a good 15 to 20 minutes for the wool to shrink tightly around the soap. Just keep scrubbin' and dippin' into the hot water. If you can still pinch big saggy wads away from the bar...you're not there yet.
Once you've gotten the wool to shrink enough, rinse the soap off a final time and notice you no longer have discernible fingerprints. Make mental note regarding your nasty mother-in-law.
Wrap the soap in paper towels and blot out as much of the water as you can without lathering it up again.
Put your finished and newly felted soap in a place to dry out completely. If they don't, they'll get moldy and ew...who wants that?!
Once dry, I wrapped it with some raffia and a little charm and called it done. As you can see, my design moved quite a bit, so now I'll pretend I meant for it to look like a fern leaf coming out, or a fancy letter "p" all along and roll with that. :wink:
And that's all I did.
Hope this helps a little.
I used one 12" piece of 100% wool roving and a scrap of another piece. I hear merino wool is best. I dunno what the hell I have.
The important part is that it's 100% wool. Divide the piece into two even 12 inch pieces about as wide as your soap.
Try to get the fibers "splayed out" as much as you can without big holes in it. Next get a bar of soap. I'm using a fug soap that's great soap, but ended up with some funky issues aesthetically. Don't throw out those abominations (tm Ganiggle). HIDE 'EM!
. Rub the hard edges of your soap on a surface (I'm using a glass cutting board) just so they don't poke through the wool as easily.
Next, lay your soap on the first piece of wool, and starting at one end, wrap the soap like a burrito, until you reach the other end of it. Pig in a blanket style. (anyone else getting hungry?)
Grab the other piece of wool and do the same exact thing except rolling on the other exposed sides of the soap, until your whole soap is covered with wool. Ya with me so far?
Now if you wanna add a splash of color or a shape onto your felted soap, grab a contrasting color piece of wool, and lay it on the wrapped soap in some sort of design that you like. The sucker moves like the dickens so I suggest something simple like a stripe etc. I just did a spiral-y shape.
Fill your sink or a very large bowl with super warm water (hot is better...who needs skin, right?!) and keeping your hands firmly on your design piece of wool and holding the whole thing together so it doesnt unravel, dip your soap/wool into the water. This is a little tricky, at first.
Gently start patting the soap on all sides to get some lather going. I've seen people kickstart it by adding a little dish soap but I didnt find I needed it. Lather lather lather, rub rub rub until you're a crazy person. You have to go slow and gentle until the wool begins to shrink some. As you keep doing this, the wool will begin to tighten around your soap more and more and the fibers will begin to "meld" together. Once this happens, you can scrub harder. I held the bar in one hand and "raked" it over my fingers with the other hand on all sides. I've seen people scrub it on a washboard too. The tricky part is keeping your design piece from migrating all over the bar, and losing it's shape. Just kinda keep a finger on it and rub at the same time. It'll stick eventually. Dip in the hot water every now and again, as the heat helps the shrinkage (as opposed to male parts, which need cold lake water.... :wink: ).
Notice my spiral is now is now elongated and weird. Just manipulate it back to where you want it and keep rubbin'. It takes a good 15 to 20 minutes for the wool to shrink tightly around the soap. Just keep scrubbin' and dippin' into the hot water. If you can still pinch big saggy wads away from the bar...you're not there yet.
Once you've gotten the wool to shrink enough, rinse the soap off a final time and notice you no longer have discernible fingerprints. Make mental note regarding your nasty mother-in-law.
Wrap the soap in paper towels and blot out as much of the water as you can without lathering it up again.
Put your finished and newly felted soap in a place to dry out completely. If they don't, they'll get moldy and ew...who wants that?!
Once dry, I wrapped it with some raffia and a little charm and called it done. As you can see, my design moved quite a bit, so now I'll pretend I meant for it to look like a fern leaf coming out, or a fancy letter "p" all along and roll with that. :wink:
And that's all I did.
Hope this helps a little.
