Post by halay on Feb 4, 2015 13:22:45 GMT
I've been trying to find a solution on how to make a larger piece, e.g. a jacket on a limited surface area, i.e. on my kitchen counter, which measures 200 x 60 cm. Reading the book Felting Fashion by Lizzie Houghton I found the instructions on how to join the seams and felt them so that you get actually a seamless jacket. In the book there was a scheme of the template which you can see here 
I made each part of the jacket separately: two sleeves, two front parts while for the back part I used a resist and laid wool on both sides to get the 1 metre width in the end. As for the lining I dyed cotton gauze and used two thin layers of 18 mic merino wool. I felted each part to the stage of prefelt and dried the pieces. With the fabric sides of the pieces together, i.e. keeping the seams on the wool side, I joined the parts and hand stitched the seams very close to the edges and pressed them flat so that when the seam was covered by two very thin layers of extra wool the seams yould not become too bulky. The seams were then felted well. I dried the jacket and put it into the washing machine to shrink, then I wetted the jacket again with soapy water and did some rolling during which the jacket shrank further and became firmer.
This project took a lot of time. If I translate this into working hours I would say about 20 hours. Is it worth it? I don't know. But if you have limited space this is the only solution.
Also, I learned how much wool is needed for such jacket: I used 400 gr of merino (unfortunately the book, which is a good one, does not tell you how much material you need). The shrinkage rate was approx 35%.
Here is the final result. www.ipernity.com/doc/724735/36924712 front side and the back side www.ipernity.com/doc/724735/36924722. And here you can see that the seams are invisible www.ipernity.com/doc/724735/36924718. As Lizzies says, felt is very forgiving.
I made each part of the jacket separately: two sleeves, two front parts while for the back part I used a resist and laid wool on both sides to get the 1 metre width in the end. As for the lining I dyed cotton gauze and used two thin layers of 18 mic merino wool. I felted each part to the stage of prefelt and dried the pieces. With the fabric sides of the pieces together, i.e. keeping the seams on the wool side, I joined the parts and hand stitched the seams very close to the edges and pressed them flat so that when the seam was covered by two very thin layers of extra wool the seams yould not become too bulky. The seams were then felted well. I dried the jacket and put it into the washing machine to shrink, then I wetted the jacket again with soapy water and did some rolling during which the jacket shrank further and became firmer. This project took a lot of time. If I translate this into working hours I would say about 20 hours. Is it worth it? I don't know. But if you have limited space this is the only solution.
Also, I learned how much wool is needed for such jacket: I used 400 gr of merino (unfortunately the book, which is a good one, does not tell you how much material you need). The shrinkage rate was approx 35%.
Here is the final result. www.ipernity.com/doc/724735/36924712 front side and the back side www.ipernity.com/doc/724735/36924722. And here you can see that the seams are invisible www.ipernity.com/doc/724735/36924718. As Lizzies says, felt is very forgiving.
