Learning to do Needle Felting

Felting, simply put, is a process that joins wool fibers together and makes them feel like felt. If you knit an object from wool yarn and then wash and dry that item, it shrinks and the fibers felt so that the knited piece can then be cut with a scissors. After felting, the knitted piece will not unravel when cut and handled. The small purses that I made earlier in this blog were constructed from felted wool that I had obtained thru washing 100% wool sweaters. These two sweaters have been washed also and they are about 1/3 the size that they originally were.Their stitches are so tight,they are almost impossible to distinguish and the feel of the sweater is that of very thick felt. I can now cut them apart and use them to construct somthing different.
This piece of wool, however, did not felt when washed and dried. I am not sure why this is, but it does not have the same thick texture and will be hard to use for a purse. The stitches remain visible, so I fear that cutting it apart would lead to unravelling.

I am also trying the technique of needle felting for embellishing my bags. With needle felting, you use a special barbed needle to repeatedly stab unspun wool into a piece of felt on which you wish to create a picture or shape. You can see on this piece of white felt I am creating a flower out of wool. I had hoped to use this flower on a purse made from the above wool, but now I don't think that that piece of wool is thick enough to hold a shape. Perhaps I will try washing it yet another time.

This piece is from a chartreuse cardigan that I felted and then needle felted two oak leaves for embellishment.