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Jane Perala Jul 3, 2007

From my wet felting ventures I have all kinds of lovely coils of roving that I purchased a couple of years ago.  One of them is "Wensleydale Teeswater Sliver", and has been dyed the most glorious yellow and gold colours.  However when I went to use it the other day, the individual fibers were sooooo looong, that it was nearly impossible to needlefelt, and kept leaving all these long whispy ends sticking out all over the place.  Is there some special kind of wool that is best for needlefelting?  I have nearly run out of my Edinburgh Imports starter kit, and need to get a selection of colours.
Thanks in advance.

Little Bear Guy Jul 4, 2007

OH Jane  I think this is a question for Bobbie,  our resident expert on wool and all other things pertaining to needlefelting,  she's a fountain of information. 

big hugs

Shane

bumblebearies Jul 4, 2007

Jane ...check out all the info under needlefelting ... especially all of Bobbie's great info...there is a ton!

yeh..... the long stuff is a pain.... and don't cut it !!.... then you have all the blunt ends to try to felt...arrgghhhh.....  but check it out in the info......

rkr4cds Jul 4, 2007

Ohwww - cool new pix under the avatar, Shane!!!
LV it, S'man!

I think I described my one & only Wensleydale (Wensleydale? More cheese, Grommit!!) Sorry... detour, just can't write that word w/o thinking of Nick Park's work...

My one & only - expensive - experiment with W is on another thread. But if you're working on anything smaller than 8", a 3" - 5" length is *more* than long enough. You've discovered one of features that makes it an excellent choice for wet felting, spinning/knitting/weaving and using the length on something very tall or large to needle those lovely curls into.

Step back first and consider first
1 - the Project: Any time you're looking for NFing fiber, first consider & decide what it will be used for (the end result) if it's anywhere from a softly needled seasonal decorative piece or will it be handled, which leads to
2 - how firmly do I need to needle it
2a - which fibers give me my end result, coming from the softest to the firmest structure
2a1 - consider the length of that breed

3 - which needles handle that fiber best.

The other new post from Stacey is on Debouillet - which I've half answer when I stopped to respond here.

Say you're looking for a 3" to 5" breed, this one fits for it's length because you're going to make a 5" tall cat out of it. But you know the owner will want to handle it: coming from a cross between (Delaine) Merino &  Rambuoillet, it's likely to be springy and soft, though each indiividual animal varies within a type and it also varies from year to year.

So there are no hard and fast rules, just guidelines. Knowing the likelihood of having its parentage displayed in its fiber, this would be a better candidate for a tree topper angel about the same size, because it has a better (easier) chance of needling into a firm yet flexible decorative piece than a cat that may need reinforcing in its legs at some point, as it will never needle into a hard core that will stand on its own like Corriedale (3") and Romney (3 - 5")

Relatively new NFers are always beguiled by those shiney ropes of Top shown on websites & on eBay. "Top" is a put up of the longest smoothest fibers, best for spinning and wet felting. What will needle/compact faster will be the fuzzy-looking matte finish ones of about 3 - 5". They don't look the prettiest but I guarantee that they will needle faster (they catch into each other due to their crimp (and a few other features inherent in the indivisdual strands).

That's not to say that you cannot NF with top, but it is produced for its sheen and length - 2 qualities not necessarily needed in NFing.

I could go on & on, but that would lead into my book......
Speaking of which: if I appear to disappear for a good while the rest of the year it's because I have set my priorities straight. I've been working off & on on it for almost 4 years now. A lot of the info on NFing I put out there like this, on lists and in ads & on webzines, is to enthuse others to learn this, as it's applicable in one form or another for every style of bear-making.

But it's coming to the point that I'm too often seeing a lot of my ideas and teachings, and indeed my very words, used by others to describe NFing. I would have thought that everyone understood about Copyrights. but perhaps not.
So, unless I stop spending so much time surfing and get down to putting this tome together, I'm going to look as if I've copied info (my thoughts originally) from evetyone else and my book will be ignored.

I've got tons of info & close to a thousand breed samples. I'm going to get this book done if it's the last thing I do! This info is needed.

rkr4cds Jul 4, 2007

LOL - No surprise that it's all Canadians here - Veronica, we were writing att the same time.

The rest of the Yanks are watching fireworks!!  Ours are tomorrow so I'll be off all day & night.

bumblebearies Jul 4, 2007

Hey, yeh...look at SuperShane!  Getting trim!

Little Bear Guy Jul 5, 2007

Thanks Bobbie glad you like the Superman pic    ,   now Veronica as for getting Trim I"m not sure about that but I'm trying to work on it.  Need to bring that blood pressure down.

See Jane I told you Bobbie is just a wealth of Knowledge when it comes to wool.

big hugs

Shane