Re: heads up for a felting question

Jun 17, 2006 4 Replies
K


All you knowledgeable spinners and felters, (Helen if you are lurking


> please answer this question for me.), tomorrow I will give a little
> workshop for school kids. We are going to make a little Yogurt lid
> size circle and make a design on or in it for Father's day. I got a
> lovely alpaca fleece from a friend. We are going to use it for this > project. >
> I know why (some) sheep wool will felt. The little barbs on the
> shaft of the wool fibre, will engage with the fibres next to it, when
> agitated and washed in hot and cold water. However, Alpaca is not
> wool, but hair, and does not have these little barbs, but felts well
> also. Why does alpaca felt so well....
>
> Thank you for any insight you may have on this I would like to have
> my facts correct when I explain things.

Els, As far as I know, all natural fibres felt. Why? I have no idea.


Higs, Katherine


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E

Hello Katherine, no not all fibers felt, not even all sheep wool will felt. A Suffolk fleece will not hang together no matter how hard you push and pull it, boil or whatever. Most frustrating when you want felt. Naturally when you make the mistake of throwing a good woolen sweater in the washing machine, it will felt for sure....LOL

Els

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K

Very true, Els! But that is interesting, that not all pure wools will felt. I never realized that.

Higs, Katherine

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K

That is very interesting! I didn't know that, and last year I tried felting something I made out of some stash yarn and even though I knew it was wool, the stuff wouldn't felt!! I knew it was wool because I had the label with the content -- it was something that was no longer available, and not a common name, got it from someone's destashing at one time, so I don't recall what it was. I agitated the heck out of it, and it just got sort of a funny texture to it, but it wouldn't felt down. That was a head-scratcher, I couldn't figure out what happened.

Karen in MN

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E

Hi Karen, you know super (spelling) wool does not felt either, because they took the barbs of the fibers, in the factory. Thus you can machine wash and dry the knitted items made from super wash wool. I think that they do that with a chemical solution

Els

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