When Is a Felt not A Felt?

 Q. When is a felt not a felt?

A. When it is a prefelt!

For a long time in my felting career I was confused about pre-felts. Why go to the effort of making another piece of felt just to stick it on to the original? Why not just add another shingle of colour when laying it out?

The answer is, of course, that adding pre-felts can provide defined blocks of colour without the wispiness of just adding a random shingle. 

In this image the colour variation has been achieved by laying out shingles in different colours giving a very blended appearance. The colour blocks were provided by silk.

However if I wanted more defined blocks of colour then I would make a pre-felt.

In this image (below) the prefelts were made ahead of time and then laid on the wet base layer.

You can see that the blocks of colour have retained their original shape and not blended into the base.

The problem with pre-felts is that they can be hard to attach. The more felted and fulled the prefelt the more reluctant it is to attach to the base.

In general, I have found:

Soft prefelts are easy to attach but aren’t as robust and will blend more with the base; hard prefelts, on the other hand will retain their shape and give a solid block of colour but can be difficult to attach.

So how much should we felt pre-felts?

The answer depends on the effect you want to achieve in the piece.

In the image above there are 3 prefelts all felted to various degrees of hardness.

The top one is very soft with quite a lot of “loft” in the fibres. It was rolled about 50 times on all sides. It holds together but can easily be pulled apart by my hands. It resembles a batt rather than a prefelt. It had barely any shrinkage (10% or less).

The middle image is much harder felt. The fibre has no “loft” and is quite a thin, flat piece of felt. It was rolled about a hundred times on each side and had shrunk about 25%. It cant be pulled apart by hand and would retain its shape much better when laid on a base layout.

The last piece is similar to the other black prefelt but it has been further stabilised by the addition of a fine layer of tissue silk on the surface. It shrunk about 25% as well but the silk will  hold the wool fibres together providing a very stable block of colour when laid on a base.

Making the harder sections of pre-felt “stick” is a tricky business. I generally use a pet brush to tease up the fibres on the adhering surface and sides. This helps the base and prefelt fibres to mingle and attach.

A cat or dog comb is an important addition to your work tools.

After laying out I spend a long time rubbing the wool either with a nylon curtain, tulle or painter’s plastic. The cut edges will adhere better if rubbed rather than rolled. I only commence rolling when the surface fibres are well connected and I roll very gently, making sure the edges are completely attached.

If you feel that making the prefelt stick will be difficult, then tiny wisps of fibre can be added around the edges before you wet down your project. I always add my prefelt to a wet base and then re-wet the entire project once the pre-felts are in place.

Prefelts have become such an important part of my work that I spend as much time making prefelts as I do actually completing the work itself.

Here are some more images of various types of prefelt useage

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In this bag the prefelts were felted to about 15% - 20% they retained their shape but blended into the base with a fuzzy outline

These merino prefelts were very heavily felted and include locks and throwsters waste additions. Notice how the hairy alpaca base has grabbed hold of the merino.

A couple of other uses of pre-felt on these bags.

This was a heavily felted prefelt with the addition of silk throwsters waste and viscose. It was a labour of patience to get the small surface area to stick to the base – many hours rubbing on this piece.

How do you use pre-felts. I'd love to see some of your examples.