Wet Felting

I have never done this before.  

I have always wanted to learn.

Here was my chance to give it a go.

Kindy needed some ocean themed goodies in their classroom.

I like sea horses.

I gently layered the fleece vertical, then horizontal, then vertical again.

Using my beautiful seahorse that sits in our bathroom as a guide. . . . . . 

I ever so gently shaped my fleece seahorse. . . . . . . .

Added detail, and seaweed. . . . . . 

and felt pretty clever.

Filling a spritz bottle with almost hot, soapy water, and saturate the fleece.

I covered the fleece with a piece of polyester type curtain.  

The fabric is rough and apparently will assist with the fleece bonding.

Roll up the bamboo matting and I tied the middle with string to keep it together while vigorously rolling back and forth, back and forth to agitate the fleeces to bond.  I am not sure of correct terminology here, it's my first time and I have not read any books on felting, I just got a verbal instruction from the class teacher on how to felt. 

Checking on progress, I unroll the mat to find things are starting to happen.  I was able to gently reshape with my fingernail bits of the seahorse and define the seaweed shape more.  Rolling bamboo up once again, and rolling back and forth, back and forth to felt.

Another look at progress and shrinking is happening, which apparently it should.

Getting closer to not being able to lift and separate the fleece.

The bamboo mat was worse for wear after my vigorous handiwork.  I owe kindy a new bamboo mat this week.  Each time I opened the roll, I gently stretched the fleece back out again, it was shrinking fast.  Next time I will keep this in mind with the initial design.

Here is a closeup of the seahorse tail.  The colours did not quite bond like I had wanted, but it did turn out alot better than I thought for my first ever wet felting attempt.

Here is my beautiful seahorse, all dried and ready to be delivered to kindy tomorrow.  

Gosh I hope they like it.  

Perfect to decorate with little shells and treasures, for a lovely underwater story.

Thanks for stopping by Joycie's place today.

Tell me, what have you made at your place lately?

xx