Knitting
Knitting Needle Sizes
UK numbers run backwards, US numbers run forwards, and only the millimetre measurement means anything. A £3 gauge settles every argument in ten seconds.
3 min read
Topic
Buying Guides
What to look for, what things cost, and what is worth the money.
Supplies & Tools
Industrial Felt Machines
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
Tips & Troubleshooting
Felt Hat Burn Test
Wool smoulders, smells of burnt hair and crushes to ash. Polyester melts into a hard bead. Thirty seconds and one loose fibre tells you what you actually bought.
3 min read
Supplies & Tools
Felt Cutting Machine
Felt has no grain and no weave, which makes it ideal for machine cutting and awful for a blade that expects resistance. Which machine cuts which thickness, and the settings that actually work.
4 min read
Supplies & Tools
Felt Hat Accessories
A hat band changes the hat more than anything else you can buy for it. The rest of the list is care equipment — and two items on it save a hat that would otherwise be ruined.
3 min read
Wet Felting
Wet Felting Books
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
Supplies & Tools
Felt Hat Brands
A handful of firms still block their own felt. Everyone else buys bodies from the same few mills. What the names mean, what to expect at each price, and where to buy in Australia or on Amazon.
3 min read
Supplies & Tools
Felt Machine Embroidery Designs
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
Supplies & Tools
Felt Hat Colours
Charcoal reads as neutral, brown reads as warm, and black reads as formal whether you meant it to or not. How felt takes dye, and which shades survive sunlight.
3 min read
Wet Felting
Bamboo Mat for Felting
The mat is not padding. Its ridges grip the wool through the plastic and shear it slightly with every roll, and that shear is what turns a fragile web into fabric.
3 min read Beginner
Supplies & Tools
Types of Felt Hats
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
Supplies & Tools
Wool Slippers Australia
Australia grows a fifth of the world's wool and imports most of its slippers. What is actually made locally, why merino is the wrong fibre for a hard-wearing slipper, and how the sizing converts.
3 min read