As a person who is truly passionate about felt, I am a member of several groups on Facebook, I participate in webinars and masterclasses. At one of the webinars, Russian felt-maker designer Alena Selezneva showed an interesting new technique for laying out wool and fibers. The layout consists of 3 layers: 2 layers of viscose fiber and wool between them. But the wool is laid out in a special way. The wool is divided into thin strands.
From the strands of wool are formed rings of different diameters.
Woolen rings are laid on the first layer of viscose with intersection each other. The layout of the wool looks like medieval chain mail. And of course, I tried this technique making a felted sweatshirt.
First I made a sample to find out the shrinkage factor. Then I built a real-size pattern for my sweatshirt with sleeves. I enlarged the pattern using the shrinkage factor and got the template for my future sweatshirt.
I laid out the first layer of viscose on the template and lightly sprinkled the viscose with water.
Then I put the wool rings that I had prepared before.
By the way, it took me a whole week in the evenings to make the rings. I laid out 2 rows of wool horizontally in the area of the neck, of the bottom of the sleeve, and the bottom of the sweatshirt to get an even, stable edge. Next, I covered the woolen rings with the second layer of viscose and wet the layout with soapy water.
I rubbed it a little with my hands through the mesh.
Then I flipped the template with the spread wool and fibers and laid out the other side of the template in the same way as the first side.
When I wetted and rubbed the other side of the sweatshirt, I used a sander. The sander helps the wool and viscose fibers adhere well to each other very quickly. I worked with the sander on both sides of the sweatshirt. When the fibers were bonded enough, I started felting. The main techniques for felting this sweatshirt were rubbing and kneading like dough.
After I finished felting, I rinsed out the sweatshirt, wrung it out in a towel, shaped it on the mannequin, and dried it. My sweatshirt finished.
It looks brutal and interesting with the holes. If you make the rings smaller and looser, then the surface will turn out without holes and will resemble astrakhan fur.