Needle Felting Challenge

[Pandagirl]

On the blog for my sample fibers, Leonor wondered if I would do the same test with needlefelting.  I took the challenge even though I'm not a needle felter. My experience with needle felting is limited to using it for corrections and small additions to wet felted projects.  So with that said, don''t take my results as gospel it was just my experience doing this project.  I used the same fibers as the wet felted samples with the addition of green Polworth/silk.

Leonor had suggested I make a ball, but I couldn't figure out how big it would have to be to include all nine fibers.  So I made a log using the corriedale as a base.  Besides the Gotland, it was the coarsest fiber I had in white.  I wasn't sure if using a dark base would be ok. Before making the log, I tried laying out the fibers like I would make a prefelt and I put it on a base of prefelt.  But after working on it for a while it was obvious this would not be worth the time to continue. 


From Left to right -- Blue Leicaster, Teeswater, Wenleysdale, Organic Polworth/silk, Poy Corriedale, Alpaca/ Silk, Gotland, Polworth/Silk
Yarn to left              Blue yarn     Brown Mohair  Green Boucle   Yellow Mohair         Purple Boucle    Pink Mohair  Gold Boucle  
End



Results:  Blue Leicaster -- soft, took the longest to felt and was still fuzzy
            Teeswater -- easiest to felt, quick and tight, coarse feel
            Wensleydale -- coarse feel, took a while, the roving migrated and was looser than teeswater.
            Organic Polworth/silk -- soft, felted faster than I thought it would, left holes that showed more, soft and shiny


                POY Corriedale -- Slight coarse feel, medium time to felt, migrated a little surprising since it was felting to itself ;-)
                Alpaca/silk -- Soft, a lot of migrating, wavy and clumping, took long to felt    
                Gotland -- Coarse after felting, quick to felt, strands like to wander
                Polworth/silk -- soft, took some time to felt and flattened more than the others.  I don't know if this was because it was at the end or I was tired. :-) 

The wensleysdale and Gotland were the coarsest followed by corriedale.
Blue Leicester, Organic Polworth, and the Alpaca Silk were all soft.  the Blue Leicester was the fuzziest.

I hope this is useful to the needle felters that haven't used these rovings before. If there is something else you'd like to know, I'll try to answer.         

[MTRuth]

Interesting experiment. How long did the whole experiment take?

[Pandagirl]

It was definitely interesting. Not something I would have thought to do on my own. If you include the prefelt trial, a few hours. I imagine if I had just prefelt each one separately , it may have worked. I wanted to try prefelt then dye the results. I thought using the prefelt as a base it would have held up better. Maybe I just wasn't patient enough. :-)

[MTRuth]

Needle felting isn't my favorite activity so I can understand the loss of patience.

[zed]

I haven't needlefelted much, but I can see why the cheapest, coarsest wool is used for the core and other wools used for the surface based on their characteristics depending on what's being made. I have a contact on flickr who makes life like dog models, and almost every time I think they're real.

[luvswool and dyestuff]

Marilyn, what a great experiment! And your work should be very helpful to needle-felters (like me) who are not familiar with felting those fibers. When I needle-felted in the past, I primarily used coarse wools like Romney and Corriedale, and sometimes using cheaper "core" felt (unknown fibers to me, probably a mix) as a base, like Zed mentioned. I then would add dyed merino wool, only as accents, because it is so difficult to needle-felt. It's kind of funny to me now that I am using lots of merino wool for welt-felting!

Marilyn, I only tried once or twice to needle-felt wool roving to a flat pre-felt, and my experience was that it did not hold up well; that is, the needle-felted fibers easily separated from the pre-felt. Firmer needle-felting would have totally "buried" the fibers into the pre-felt, a frustrating experience.

[Pandagirl]

Thanks Cathy. I feel better now about a abandoning the prefelt part of it. I learned a lot so I'm glad Leonor asked me to do it. I think from now on I won't be as intimidated by doing a little if it. But wet felting is definitely my first love. I'm amazed at Polly's first attempt at needle felting. I hope her first attempt at wet felting is as successful.

I had heard or read that merino was hard to needle felt so I didn't even attempt it the silk blends were challenging enough. I think we can add the blue Keicaster to the merino category, too.

I'll have to get some of the 56 blend to have on hand in the event I'm moved to try slippers or another needle felt project. :-)

[Pandagirl]

Leicester. Sorry typo. Autocorrect drives me crazy! : 0)

[MTRuth]

And what would "Keicaster" be anyways? I don't like auto correct either. Every time I type color it changes it to Colorado.

[Leonor (of Eleanor Shadow)]

Thanks for trying this for me, Marilyn! I really appreciate it. I would love to get my hands on the fibres you mention felt the best to try them myself... all I seem to find the most online is merino.

It's quite interesting how some fibres seem wonderful for wet felting but terrible for needle felting... I don't love merino, it's too soft for me. I do love coarser fibres or wool batting as opposed to wool tops or roving.

When I suggested you try making little balls it was for you to see how quickly it would felt on its own, each fibre. Do you think it would have changed anything about this experience?

[MTRuth]

Welcome Leonor! Have you tried World of Wool. They have a variety of fibers. Your avatar is cute - I hope you'll join in and show us more of your work.

[Pandagirl]

Ahhh, Leonor. I see now what you meant. That probably would be a good idea, but I have a feeling the outcome may be quite the same. If I have time I'll try it.

Oh if you are a fiber addict like the rest if us you'll love World of Wool as Ruth suggested. If I were in the UK it would definitely be my go to place. For me, the shipping to the states is a barrier. However, there are plenty of places here in the us that ship worldwide, but may not have the selection they have. Check them out I have a feeling you'll find heaven. :-)

[Leonor (of Eleanor Shadow)]

Hi, Ruth! I haven't ordered from World of Wool, but I've heard of them... I'll have to have a sneak peek and see if anything beckons me
And thanks for the compliment on my avatar! That's Ninja Bunny, my Felt Buddies logo image - I just love that odd-looking critter

Marilyn, I'm sure the outcome would have been quite similar, yes I just tend to think as a needle felter and a ball is the most simple shape for a quick felt I can think of in my head!
Shipping costs and Customs - two things that should ceasse to exist, huh?

[Shepherdess]

when Zed did a comparison on the blog we found that world of wool was cheapest even when you add in the shipping form the various places. there are a couple of fiber pages on facebook where people offer different fleeces or where you can ask and people will direct you.

[Leonor (of Eleanor Shadow)]

I've been thinking about wholesale orders for the future, but it would be quite the investment... I do hear that World of Wool is quite good and reasonably priced, so I'll have to look into it when I need more colours.

Hm, any idea on which Facebook pages might have fleeces? I haven't seen any mention of it in the ones I like. Sorry for being a pest, but if I get my hands on a nice fleece and get to experiment with it soon I'll be a very happy girl