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Wednesday, April 3, 2013.

Today we gathered to show Anička and her mom Alena how to wet-felt a Waldorf style playscape.

Nunu and Anička (who just turned 8, Happy Birthday!) started by applying with a few thin, flat layers of white wool batting onto a piece of green rectangular felt.

130404 Nunu and Anicka layering flat, thin layers of white batting to make wet-felted Waldorf playscape blanket mat

(The green piece of rayon/wool blend felt seen above is actually optional. The rectangular shape and size helped the children in composing the playscape. However, in the end, our playscape was thick enough, we removed the green backing and saved it for other uses).

Anička made the overall playscape design. The children and I laid down about 2 layers thick of colorful wool batting on our playscape.

130403 layering colorful PeaceFleece wool roving on playscape landscape blanket

We got most of these gorgeous PeaceFleece wool batting from Chimera’s Etsy Store. I love this material that is so easy to use for needle-felting, gives great texture as well.

I highly recommend these wool batting (70% wool, 30% mohair) for the beginner (or anyone) needle-felter. Huge pack of 21 colors for $20 on Etsy. Makes a great gift for that crafty child or person. I just bought a package each for Nunu and for Anička from Chimera. I love it!

You can also purchase PeaceFleece directly from their website here: http://peacefleece.com/

130404 Chimera's huge bag of PeaceFleece listing on Etsy. 4x 6 cropped

Wool that is the most easy to felt with: http://peacefleece.com/

Chimera on Etsy.com

It was a gorgeous and sunny spring day. We placed our project on top of 2 thick towels in the garden and drizzled thin layers of liquid soap (brown soap in the photo below) all over the wool.

130403 Nunu and Anicka wet-felting playscape. Applied liquid soap on wool

Please ignore the green watering can on the bottom right. That was not used in our craft project today.

130403 liquid soap over wool roving playscape.

The hot water was ready. I drizzled thin streams of boiling water onto the wool. This project was thick and thirsty. I needed about 3 kettle-fuls of boiling water.

130403 hot water and soap drizzled onto the wool roving

For the next step/wet-felting, we covered the above with a piece of  polyester fabric larger than our project. The polyester fabric should ideally about 7 inches (roughly) longer than out project on one side (this is to ensure at the that the entire project can be completely rolled up in the polyester fabric later).

130403 Polyester fabric for wet-felting

We happened to have this polyester fabric with texture, given to us by our friends at Piecemakers.com. I think the texture is optional, just fun. The function of this SYNTHETIC fabric is to hold the design in place as the project received agitations for the felting process.

The initial goal was to get the entire playscape to be completely soaked with hot, soapy water. The water was too hot for the children to touch. So I gently pressed down evenly on the polyester fabric to encourage the hot water to spread and soak through the entire playscape. This was done carefully so not to disturb the colorful design below.

Once that was done, and as the water cooled a little, the children joined me. They gently patted the playscape (covered by the pink polyester fabric) while singing African tribal song, “Ay Ziggy Zumba Zumba Zumba” to the beat (Thank you Chris Bennett for teaching us this song!) Our goal here was still to get the wool to be fully soaked with soap and water. Strong pressure was avoided at this step because that would displace and ruin our design.

130403 Anicka and Nunu children wet-felting playscape.

The children happily anticipated rough stomping and rolling on the wet-felted project. Since I was multitasking that day and I had some other urgent mommy duty to attend to, I drastically simplified the wet-felting process to fit in my mommy routines. To the dismay of the children (who love the manual labor), I discovered a new way of wet-felting that requires little pounding, patting, rolling or manual labor!

I now share that secret with all the busy crafters in the world who could use this simplification of process…

Wet-Felting Without The Manual Agitation Step

When the playscape was sufficiently soaked through, I skipped the manual agitation step, (despite having the bamboo mat ready for it) yielding a much simpler process.

I tightly and smoothly rolled up the wet-felted playscape in that pink polyester fabric. Carefully to avoid wrinkles as I rolled. Whenever I see dry spots of wool, I gently poured water (alas the water had cooled down, but I used it anyway) the dry areas. Here is a photo of our craft group rolling our a large playscape we made earlier this year. Rebecca helped ease away the wrinkles/ bubbles in as the group tightly rolled the playscape below.

130130 Smoothing out the wrinkles as we roll up the wet-felting playscape blanket with a swimming pool noodle tube 2

Click here to view our craft group’s wet-felting (a large playscape) process for that day.

Ah! This brings back memories of dinosaurs like me pouring DNA sequencing gels in my research lab at wee hours of the night as a graduate student, in ages of yore, when scientists still had to craft their own sequencing gels… But this is a zillion times more relaxing, being non-radioactive, having way fewer stakes involved and no physical danger. But I digress…

Today, we rolled up our wet, soapy playscape with only polyester fabric (no bubble wrap or swimming pool noodle as in photo above). This rolled up playscape was to be carefully tied up and placed inside a pillow case to be felted along my family’s laundry pile in the washer and dryer cycles.

  • Please take into consideration the type and amount of soap you use for this playscape. I forgot about that and my washing machine ended up with extra suds.
  • Also, consider the dye colors of your wool, if the colors would run in the wash, you will want to wash your project separately from your family laundry.

Polyester fabric works for felting in the washer and dryer because …

  1. It holds the design in place during the tumbling/felting process in the washer and dryer runs
  2. polyester allows air to circulate somewhat (in comparison to plastic wrap), thus the felt project has a chance to dry.
  3. polyester fabric does not felt onto wool, so you can remove the polyester fabric in the end. I imagine this applies to the other synthetic fabrics as well.

I used rubber bands to hold up the rolled up polyester+playscape. I folded the playscape in half (V shape) and stuck that into a large pillow case. I tied a knot on the pillow case and put the rolled up playscape in the pillow case into my washing machine with my family laundry. I washed my family laundry with the playscape/pillow. Then I moved all the laundry into the dryer with the rest of my laundry.

I forgot to wash off the liquid soap first before entering the playscape into my HE washing machine. In the end, I got a lot of suds for my laundry and had to run an extra rinse cycle. Fortunately non of the wool’s color run. So my family laundry was safe.

Little puppy Pablito sleeping soundly as we crafted.

130403 Little black puppy Pablito sleeping as we crafted

Wet-felting now gives me more excitement to do my family laundry. The children (and I ) were so eager to see what the result looked like. I kept my fingers crossed that the designs felted well and not get displaced in the tumbling dryer.

130403 Anicka and Nunu unwrapping our playscape rolled up in pink polyester fabric

YAY! Our playscape successfully felted in the washer and dryer!

HORRAY!!! SUCCESSFUL Wet-felting WITHOUT that ga-zillion repeats of rolling, stomping and manual agitation! Click here to see what the poor children missed out: the fun of repeat manual agitation for wet-felting…

130328 Nunu and Vivi wet-felting tryptich stomping on wet-felting project rolled inside bamboo mat, polyester sheet and bubble wrap

Click here to see our wet-felting with lots of manual labor fun for the kids.

Playscape, brown wall for cottage, green cottage roof. All just retrieved from felting in the dryer. Click here to see a tutorial on how to make a simple felt cottage.

130403 Anicka and Nunu with the wet-felted playscape unrolled from polyester wrapping from the dryer

We considered making blankets for sleeping with this blanket. Perhaps lining with silk.

Anička modeling the playscape as a winter coat.

130403 Anicka with wet-felted playscape as a coat

After hours of napping, baby Pablito finally woke up and hungrily ate some Russian-style yogurt.

130403 Pablito woke up and ate a some Russian yogurt

Wednesday night. A flurry of needle-felting. How wonderful it is to have friends over for crafting.

Alena stitched bendable wire into a posable felt bridge. Here, she is covering the bridge with roving.

130403 Needle-felting craftsters in my kitchen

I showed Anička how to needle-felt windows onto her wet-felted gnome home. Click here to see the steps in making a simple gnome home.

130403 Anicka felting yellow windows onto her gnome home

Alena rolled and needle-felted her first chimney with smoke for the gnome home.

130403 Alena needle-felting chimney with smoke onto gnome cottage

I love using white wool batting for the “smoke”.

For a little splurge, we love hand dyed mulberry silk fibers from Etsy store Crystal Creek Fibers . $12 per huge 2 oz bag, free shipping. They are so shiney and just heavenly to hold and play with. Gorgeous material! We treat it like gold and use tiny amounts on special places like flowers to make them shine.

130409 Hand Dyed Mulberry Silk Fibers from Etsy Store Crystal Creek Fibers 2oz $12 free shipping

Crystal Creek Fibers on Etsy.Com

April 3, 2013 Wednesday night. Ta-daa! Results from our work today: Anička’s first wet-felted playscape and felt cottage.

130403 Results of Anicka's first wet-felted playscape with cottage day 1

Anička planted a life-giving flower in the middle of her island. She told us that this flower gives life to those who travel and seek it. How wonderful, Anna!

130403 Anicka needle-felted a life-giving magical flower onto her wet-felted playscape island

Thursday,  April 4, 2013. The final result. Anička added her own handmade peg dolls and other touches to her playscape.

130404 Anicka's first wool felted handmade playscape with little peg dolls 2

Close-up of Anička’s handmade peg doll peeking out from her felt cottage.

130404 Anicka's first felted cottage and playscape

Little peg dolls are ideal to go with a playscape of this size. The above peg dolls were made by Anička. The little blossom fairy dolls are also great size for this playscape.

The End of this tutorial. If you wet-felt this way, please share a link or photo with me in the comment box below, it will make me smile! – Jzin

Not end of tutorial yet, I can go on and on about playscapes! I am like a little kid, I love playscapes! Here is one I made with my 8 year old daughter. You can see more of the process on this link.

130408 Nunu's first wet-felted playscape overview photo. 1 logo

Alena’s Amazing Blossom Fairies Made in December 2012

Here are some blossom fairies handmade by Alena last year to donate to our Waldorf School of Orange County Winter Festival Elves Workshop. Gorgeous handwork!

This one may be my favorite…

“Less than perfection” is a concept foreign to the mind of this crafter. My case in point: glitter hearts. Oooo !

These are truly sweet honey for the eye and soul!

Little blossom fairies playing hide and seek in the cherimoya tree in front of The Company of Angels school store…

The instructions to make the above craft/ Blossom Fairies can be found on page 27 of Petra Berger’s book, Feltcraft below.

Felt Craft by Petra Berger book cover cropped.

Amazon.com

 

You may like to check out our other crafts below…

Felted Playscapes

130403 Anička's first wet-felted playscape. Square.130408 Nunu's first felted playscape. Square130408 Felted Toadstool Gnome Home Tutorial. Square130324 Spring craft. A family of felted rabbits in a burrow. logo130328 Mommy and me making wet-felted octopus 2 words130206 square. Waldorf School of Orange County wet-felted Enchanted Fairy Tale woodland playscape in Spring part 2 work in progress130130 Part One. Square. Squirting liquid dish detergent and hot water on wet-felted playscape blanket130205 Part Two. Prince, princess and unicorns galloping across the woodland130321 Part Three. Square. Gisela adding brown felt base to felt cottage1303021 Part Four. Square. Nunu help selling raffle tickets at Company of Angels Store130117 Inspiration for our craft group wet felted playscape.Needle Felted Mermaid and Waterfall and Lagoon by PhaedraPhoenix. square

Here is a link to Our Wednesday Morning Weekly Craft Group Projects121202 Vintage Life photo show girls crafting inside trailer at war times. Post button for Wednesday Morning Craft Group

Jzin’s Handmade Dolls.

Sleeping Beauty at the window. Square.

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If you like this page, click here and Like me on Facebook. Shanghai girls Post Pretties. Free and Beautiful resources for learning mandarin chinese, made with love for you. CastleofCostaMesa.Com

 

Comments

  • Jess

    How amazing your project turned out. Thanks for sharing how to do it! I want to make a larger baby tummy time play mat, around 30×30″. How much wool do you think I’d need?

    November 21, 2023
    reply

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