Felting in locks

[Deleted]

Hello Ladies

Second problem : I made a handbag today. I wanted to put some long locks around the border of the front flap. I already completed felting the entire bag (including the flap of course) but did not yet fulled it at that stage.

I separated the locks and made sure that the ends had enough fiber to grab onto the flap of the handbag. 

On top of the still wet flap, I laid a thinnish layer of dry Merino fiber. Then I put the locks down with the fiber ends on top of the Merino fiber. Then I covered that with a thin layer of Merino fiber. Then I wet it down slightly and put the voile over and patted it down with my hands.

And then I had endless problems with the Merino fiber sliding away from the locks' ends and of course the locks not felting in solidly.

Question : what did I do wrong?

Any hints/tips on how to felt with locks?

Regards

Linn

[jwugg]

It's not so easy to add more fibre once the first is felted. Sometimes you can do it by needle felting slightly to get it started, or by using a small hard brush to disturb the flat felted fibers. But the best way is to include the locks from the start so you are felting it all at the same time. You'll want resists on them.

[Deleted]

Hello Jill

Thank you for the good advice. That was my thoughts too when I finally went to bed last night.

Lesson learnt, now I know better for a future project which will include locks :-)

Regards
Linn