My love affair with felted wool continues......as I have fun experimenting with National Nonwoven's Woolfelt. I was interested in determining whether the 100% Woolfelt would be a suitable fabric for garments.
Here's my result..... The wool, even after washing is a bit stiffer than I'd prefer.....but that also made it a great fabric to applique. I found absolutely no distortion at all.In a previous post I mentioned my desire to add some background texture with machine quilting, but found that it reduced the drape too much. Instead, I cut simple applique shapes of Woolfelt. Even though the fiber content ranged from 20/80 to 100% wool, they all behaved beautifully.
Unlike the bleeding problem I experienced when working with the original bamboo/rayon felt (National Nonwoven's solved that problem) this fabric was colorfast when I washed it. However, I was surprised to find a blush of red on my sewing machine throat plate and on my hands from the stitching process.
I hadn't planned on lining the simply unstructured jacket, but decided to prevent dye transfer to undergarments it was necessary and it may be a bit more comfortable to wear since wool can sometimes be a bit itchy.
All in all, I like the 100% wool, but probably wouldn't make another garment as the seams are a bit too bulky.
Because I sewed each lining piece to the wool garment sections.....I needed to bind the edges of the jacket to prevent the raw edges of the lining fabric from raveling. My solution was to use Steam-a-Seam 1/4" tape and press it to the front garment edges. Then I fused 1/2 of a narrow strip of 20/80 Woolfelt along that edge.
Next, this step was repeated for the inside....here you can see the paper is still on the Steam-a-Seam strip.
Once the paper was removed, I simply folded the Woolfelt binding strip to the inside and fused.
When all the sections were complete and the garment was assembled, I top stitched the purple binding to provide extra security and visual detail.
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Because I sewed each lining piece to the wool garment sections.....I needed to bind the edges of the jacket to prevent the raw edges of the lining fabric from raveling. My solution was to use Steam-a-Seam 1/4" tape and press it to the front garment edges. Then I fused 1/2 of a narrow strip of 20/80 Woolfelt along that edge.
Next, this step was repeated for the inside....here you can see the paper is still on the Steam-a-Seam strip.
Once the paper was removed, I simply folded the Woolfelt binding strip to the inside and fused.
When all the sections were complete and the garment was assembled, I top stitched the purple binding to provide extra security and visual detail.I can't wait to work with this wool on a wall hanging since it's such a wonderfully stable fabric.
1 comment:
This is beautiful and red is a great color on you.
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