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Rufnut Teddy'sCan someone tell me more about wet felting?
What is the technique, steps that are used?
Will it help stop the fuzziness of the wool especially around the facial features.
Any comments are welcome please 
Patsy Lake BearsI will be intrested in any comments as well .......
Posts: 3,177What's all this then? What am i missing? Should i be giving my bears a dip in the bath? Maybe take them to the local pool? Felt under water?
C'mon let me into the secret girls - pleeeeeeze :rolleyes:
Penny 
Kim-Bee BearsI would think that if you wet wool, it woud stink like a wet dog (that smell my one wool sweater gets when I wash it) YUCK
I am intersted in learning about this though
MerBear OriginalsI find it helps to keep a small bowl of warm water with a touch of dish soap and dip your fingers in it to smooth your felted creation.
That's not exactly wet felting but it does do the trick.
Marion
Flying Fur StudiosI was just going to say what Marion did.
I do that with alot of my felties, and it really does help with the smoothness.
As for real we felting, haven't tried it yet.
Heather
LuxembearsI like Marions way of wetting the wool to tame it down.
The only wet felting I am familiar with is different than the kind of felting with needles.
I have knitted animals with pure wool mixed with mohair. The knitting is done very loosely. Then the pices are placed in the washing machine and set at the hottest setting. This shrinks and meshes the fibers to gether making a nice firm finished piece.
Maybe Neysa can add to this.
Posts: 3,177Hi Marion,
When you say dish soap do you mean what we over here call washing up liquid? Is'nt it strange how we all have different names for things?
Judi - i woud be sweating buckets watching those little pieces of knitting going around in the machine on hot wash - all that work could end up in the bin......
......might try it out one day though, sounds fun
Penny 
MerBear OriginalsIf 'washing up liquid' is what you wash dishes with then that's it. I use a little container with a lid - it holds about 1/2 cup of water and maybe a tsp of dish soap. I don't shake it cause I don't really want it foamy.
I have seen a demo of wet felting and they use a lot of soapy water to soak the wool -quite messy! Then as I remember it was rubbed on a washboard and treated pretty roughly until it felted up.
Marion
Posts: 3,177Thank you Marion - that's excellent advice, i'll give it a go with my next bear :thumbsup:
Penny :clap:
Patsy Lake BearsThankyou Marion, I will give it ago
Posts: 8,574I use a spray bottle of water.....its good for that and also keeping the cats in line... :twisted:
My female Burmese is so dumb...she never gets it.....
( SEE I CAN BE EVIL)
She gets lost, and starts complaining, she doesn't recognize that if she turned around she would see us and then not be lost anymore....
I use a spray bottle because it wont make a mess....when I tip it over.
Which I will.
Its simply a matter of time.... :wacko:
:P
never fails
It also helps when stuffing minis with kapok.....which still manages to find more touble to get into than all the gollies put together
Rufnut Teddy'sThe only wet felting I have seen is with wool roving carefully set on plastic and covered with soap liquid then rolled alot of times in order to felt the fibres together, the technique was used to make felted scarves and it works great.
Just wondered if the wet felting technique has been used in anyway for what we do?
Luxembears
Hi. I thought I would share with you a few pictures of some knitted-then-wasing-machine-felted bears I made. These started out much larger before the hot water felting process. These are jointed. I wish I still had the brown bear.....think I had better make another one! The first photo makes the bear's legs look different sizes but they are actually the same.
I mixed wool with a strand of mohair wool to get this really fuzzy effect.
MerBear OriginalsJudi...that's a very interesting technique. Do you knit loosely with bigger needles and then hot-water felt them? Do you follow any specific pattern? I have some patterns for knitted bears that I haven't gotten to yet but may drag them out now. I guess you would have to use wool - not synthetic yarn - for the felting effect..and I like the fuzzy mohair as well.
Thanks,
Marion
LuxembearsYes, Marion, you have to use larger needles and knit loosely for it to felt properly. The end result is a nice thick felted piece...or in this case, pieces. It feels very substantial. You have to use a good quality wool. I have only found this kind of wool at a fine yarn shop. Graft store normally do notr carry it....but I may be wrong now....it has been quite a while sicne I have done any knitting/felting like this. ALso, be awre that some kinds of white wool will not work....something tio do with the bleaching treatment.
While you are knitting with the added atrnd of mohair it is not as fuzzy as it is after you felt it. This is so much fun to see what you can come up with.
Have fun, Marion if you try this.
Flying Fur StudiosJudi, those Bears are sooooo cool!
Where does your talent end???
I've never seen such large bears. I have knitted a horse, maybe I'll try another one, and felting it.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Heather
Rufnut Teddy'sJudi, thanks for sharing this technique with us, I have seen this done with fashion handbags on the How to Channel, its very effective. Your bears turned our great, thanks for sharing them with us. :clap:
Patsy Lake Bearsthanks for the info all
LuxembearsYou are very welcome. :pray:
I have also seen this method used for making hats as well.
It is really fun to see what the outcome may be. I want to make more....so many bears...so little time....(sigh) 
Kim-Bee Bears
I tried this dish soap/water thing and my felty just got more fuzzy! am I doing something wrong? Kringle (pic above) has fuzzies on his head (stray hairs), how do I tame them? do I need Frizz Ease? LOL
MerBear OriginalsWere you just using your fingers to gently smooth them down with the water? That's all I do. It doesn't get completely smooth and at times I just cut the longer stray threads off.
Great bear tho! :clap:
Marion
Kim-Bee BearsDo your felties usually have fuzzies too?
MerBear Originals
I think there are always some fuzzies depending on how firm you felt. Do you have the really fine 42 needles for finishing? I find they help as well. I use a cut up coffestick stirey thing and insert two needles in it and use it all over.
Marion
Kim-Bee BearsI dont use the finer ones on the whole bear... should I be? I ususally use it for the "eye holes" mouths and such...
