Topic
What to look for, what things cost, and what is worth the money.
Starter kit, project kit, wet felting kit and gift kit are four different purchases sold under one word. Which one suits what you want to make, what a needle felting kit should contain, and what almost every kit leaves out.
8 min read Beginner
Felted Sky is a family-run American maker of beginner needle felting kits. What the Sculpting with Wool boxes contain, the one thing to check before ordering, and how to keep going once the wool is gone.
6 min read Beginner
Combs remove short fibre and align the rest, which carders cannot do. What the pitch and tine count mean, which size to buy, and how to make a usable pair for very little.
4 min read Intermediate
A pen holds three to seven needles and covers ground several times faster than one. Where that speed is worth having, where it ruins the work, and which tool to buy.
5 min read Beginner
Halfway between merino and a carpet fleece, and better than either at most felting jobs. What corriedale is, how it behaves, and when merino is still the right answer.
5 min read Beginner
The cheap coarse wool that fills the inside of every needle felted sculpture. Why using merino for a core wastes both money and time, and what to buy instead.
4 min read Beginner
Soap does two jobs in wet felting — it lubricates and it raises the pH so the scales open. Which soaps do both, and why washing-up liquid is a compromise.
4 min read Beginner
Felting books split into three kinds — technique manuals, project collections and artist monographs. Most people buy the second kind first and wish they had bought the first.
3 min read
Fifteen felt hat names, what distinguishes each one, and which of them turn up as crossword answers — because half the questions about hat names come from a grid.
3 min read
UK numbers run backwards, US numbers run forwards, and only the millimetre measurement means anything. A cheap needle gauge settles every argument in ten seconds.
3 min read
Everything sold as felt by the metre came off one of three machines. A needle loom entangles the web, a hardening plate shrinks it, and a calender presses it to thickness.
4 min read
Felt is the easiest fabric an embroidery machine will ever meet — no fraying, no grain, and it is its own stabiliser. Almost. The two places it goes wrong are density and hooping.
4 min read
