Felting is the process of making fabric (felt) from protein animal fibers such as sheep. Simply speaking, hand felting is the creation of this fabric by hand. This non-woven technique, which has been used for 2000 years by nomads to make yurts and clothing, is now making a comeback with hand crafters all over the world.

Today, most of the felt you find in stores is made by machines from synthetic fibers, but the felt that I make is with authentic sheep?s wool. Making felt is labor-intensive work, but the results are unparalleled. It?s such an interesting process from start to finish, I thought you might like to know a little bit more about how your hat/clothing was created.

Step 1:

You begin with shearing the sheep, washing and then dying the wool with the various colors you would like. Then, lay out the fibers in the desired pattern. When wool is subjected to heat, pressure, agitation, moisture, and soap, it bonds together (because there are scales on the sides of the fibers that open up when they are subjected to this process.) The scales hook together and shrink to form material.

?I like to draw out my patterns or pictures ahead of time. Then I have a reference guide as to which colors I want and where they should be placed.?

Step 2:

In order to make a firm fabric after the shrinking process (Step 4) the fibers need to be at least 2 ??- 3? thick when lying on the table in the pattern.

?When I am making a hat, I like to have the inside of the hat a different color than the outside. Therefore, I lay out my fibers in several layers. The color for the inside on the bottom and the pattern and colors for the outside on top of that. This also holds true for those articles that are designed to be reversible.?

Step 3:

When you are happy with the design and you have the right thickness, you pour hot water and soap all over the fibers.

?This is critical to the shrinking process.?

Step 4: 

After it is completely wet down it is rolled up in bubble wrap, tied and agitated (rolled) with your arms to start the felting process.

?Agitating the fibers causes the fibers to interlock creating the actual felt. It also starts this shrinking process.?

Step 5:

Once the fibers start to bond together into a fabric, it is put onto a mold to start shaping it into a hat. The felt is in a ?soft pre-felted? stage and it is not until the final stage of rubbing it down vigorously with soap and water that the final product is created.

?When making felt for clothing such as jackets or coats, the shrinking process is carried out by continued agitation until the fabric has shrunk to 1/3 of its original size.?

Step 6:

When all of the fibers are nice and tight around the mold, it is left to dry, finalizing the shrinking process. The finishing touches include cutting the brim, steam ironing and decorating to create the final product.

As you can well see, this process is a labor of love and making one hand-felted hat takes approximately 10 hours from start to finish. There is no greater satisfaction than creating these one-of-a?kind pieces each time.