Dry felting for beginners

Other names of dry felting are the filtering set (from the German words filtz - wool and nadel - needle), filing or felting. In the process of dry felting, fibers of wooltangled together, compacted and transformed into felt (felt). For this purpose, special needles with barbs are used. Actually, apart from these needles, you will not need any other specific tools for dry felting.

In addition to unkempt wool and several needles of different thickness, which can be purchased at the store for needlework, you will need a thick foam rubber sponge - it is necessary in order not to accidentally prickneedle fingers or a table on which lies the future product. If you want to do something in the technique of dry felting, it makes sense to replace a part of the wool with a sintepon - it is much cheaper. In this case, the base of the product is rolled from the sintepon, and the sheath is made of wool. Determining the amount of wool for your craft, remember that when dry felting, it shrinks by about a third, therefore the source material must be larger than the planned size.

Taking the necessary amount of wool, formfrom it approximate outlines of the future product (for a bead, for example, you can simply roll a ball out of a wool), put it on a foam sponge and proceed to a dry felting. How to do it? It's very simple: you need to poke a needle in a lump of wool, turning it slightly. The needle will cling to the fibers of the wool, they will become tangled, and the wool will become more dense.

It is important to remember that the needles for dry felting are very sharp. Punctures need to be done carefully, so thattraumatized. To beat with a swing is not necessary - so you can break a needle. In no case can not keep the workpiece on weight. You need to start with needles of large size, and as the product is compacted, replace them with thinner ones. Hold the needle strictly perpendicular to the felting plane, otherwise it may become stuck and break.

If your workpiece consists of several parts, you first need to dump them separately, and then privat each other with a small piece of wool. If you need to achieve great strength (for example, you make in the technique of dry felting a child's toy, which during the game can "cripple"), then it is better to sew details and hide the threads by patting the wool on top.

It happens that in some places of the crafts, when dry felting is formed unevenness. This is easy to fix by applying a little wool on top. This is something and a good dry felting - allowing a mistake, you do not need to re-do everything anew, everything can be fixed quickly and without much effort.

Start my acquaintance with the technique of dryfelting stands with simple things (beads, for example), and then you can gradually move on to more complex objects. The beauty of dry felting is that it does not require a lot of space, it can be combined with watching movies and communicating with friends, it allows you to realize almost any creative ideas - there would be time and colorful wool. And even dry felting is an excellent stress therapy, this process is very reassuring, but the joy of the finished product can for a long time lift the mood.