Felt making

Way back in Novemeber when it was Mum's birthday I booked for us to go on a felt making day with Gillian Harris and today was the day that we went. Just 20min down the road, in the snow we arrived at Gillian's house - marked by a felt sign on the door. After a cup of tea and introduction to our fellow novice felt makers Gillian demonstarted how to make a little bag - and it only took her what seemed like 10 min! Mum and I chose to make tea pot cosies while the others set to on hand bags. First a design for the inside - I didn't capture that on the camera but its under that green layer of fluff! Then the background colour for the inside - the green wool! Then a lot of water and soap to start off the matting process under a piece of netting. Over on the other side of the plastic template I repeated the pattern and more greenery and more rubbing. By this time the ginger biscuits were out - definitely needed as the rubbing was hard work. Then a middle layer of yellow wool in the opposite direction to the green, more rubbing and a final pink layer with a pattern. Then lots of soap and lots of rubbing to hold the fibres together. All the wool I used was merino, which felts quite quickly but Mum chose a Jacob's sheep wool which took a smidgeon longer.
Then it was time for a spot of lunch - delicious vegetarian sushi with hot hot wasabi followed by chocolate brownies! I tried my hand at making some felt balls and then we were hard at it again felting the tea cosies and handbags with hot and cold water and rolling them in bamboo blinds - not to be confused with sushi mats! Finally the moment arrived when I could snip through the pink continuous outer and cut an opening for the teapot. The yellow and green layers were revealed, along with the original pattern on the green that I had done earlier, I couldn't remember what it looked like so it was all rather exciting. More rubbing and washing and the tea cosy was finished! All in a few hours - what fun!!!