When felting is undesired, it means it happens to a knitted sweater or another garment that you have that is made out of wool. When felting is desired, it means it becomes a new type of fabric that can be used for making items. Weather changes, changing environments, and accidentally washing your woolen clothes can all cause an unfortunate combination of swift temperature changes and friction that will cause your garments to felt.
It is the combination of water, soap and friction that causes alpaca woolen fabrics to felt. This also means that the alpaca fiber is a fine fiber, generally below 30 microns.
You can expect alpaca wool to felt more than other, coarser wool fibers, as it takes longer for coarse fibers to felt. But in the end… No matter the size of the scales, they are all prone to felting and friction can be disastrous for your woolen garment!
Wool consists of many individual hairs. All the individual hairs are locked together into yarn. A single thread of yarn has a large number of woolen hairs tightly bundled together.
However, while the single hairs might be tightly put together, their scales can still find room to wiggle out of their original place. When this happens, they can get in touch with other individual hairs. In such situations, the wild hairs will start interlocking with other hairs from different bundles, creating a layer that is not part of the original knitted fabric.
The most important factors for felting to occur are water, changes in temperature, soap and friction. Now let me think… Where have I heard this combination before? In the washing machine. When it comes to washing wool, make sure that you never, ever put your items in the washing machine. Carded alpaca fleece the number of rolls of carded fleece you use will determine the thickness of the felt you make. Hot and cold water. Bubble wrap cut slightly larger than the size of the felt you want to make.
Two pieces of material sheer curtain material is ideal also cut slightly larger than the size of the felt you want to make. Add the soap flakes to hot water about 1 cup of flakes to 2 litres of water and mix in thoroughly.
Lay out bubble wrap bubble side up on a flat surface. Place one of the pieces of cloth on top of the bubble wrap. Unroll one bundle of fleece and lay on top of cloth. Repeat step 4 with all the other bundles of fleece making sure that each layer is crossing the one underneath ie fibres in each layer are at 45 o to the layer underneath. Completely soak fleece with soapy water mixture and flatten down gently. Place the other piece of cloth on top of layered fleece and dampen down.
Starting from bottom edge, roll bubble wrap and layers into a sausage and then roll the sausage backwards and forwards 50 times. Unroll the "sausage" and then spin the layers 45 o so that the side edge is now at the bottom. Just remember to alternate directions by 90 degrees for each layer when laying out the fleece.
You can use different colours to create some interesting effects. Felting Process Now fill a hand spray bottle with very hot water and put in a few squirts of washing up liquid. Use this to spray the fibre until it is thoroughly wetted but not running with water.
Next fold over the bubble wrap and gently start to press down the fibre and rubbing very gently to start. Check periodically to see that the fibres are starting to stick together; as they do you can begin to apply more pressure and agitate more fiercely.
When you can pinch the fibre and it stays together, turn in any loose edges. Cover over again and rub gently until the edges felt. Fulling Felting wool has a final stage: Fulling, which removes air between the fibres making them tighter fitting and your finished felt thicker and stronger.
If you used a screen, remove it now and fold the bubble wrap back over. Then roll the whole thing - fibre and bubble wrap into a sausage and roll backwards and forwards vigourously.
Unwrap and roll up longways and repeat so that you get even shrinkage in all directions.
0コメント