AS LONG AS I'M FELTING

Perhaps this post should be called 'how not to'??  I thought....well....as long as I'm wet felting....I might as well do some experimenting.  You see, our Fiber Junkies's May meeting will focus on sun printing.  And of course I'm thinking beyond just using 100% cotton for this task.

 So, I dug out a bag of Pellon's Legacy 100% wool batting.  This product is so readily available, so that for the longest time I've been wanting to see 'if' or 'how' it'd felt.

 Unfortunately, not very well.  You can see how little shrinkage there was compared to a piece of batting the same size that it's sitting on.  This was after more than enough time was spent working at it.  

I should have taken a photo of my next less than brilliant idea....but it was such a mess that my concentration went to cleaning it up, rather than documenting it.  So...what was this idea?  Oh...silly me decided to plunk some sections in the washing machine, on hot with a tad of soap using the gentle cycle.  Clearly these fibers differ from those that easily mesh as one.  Instead, clumps of fluff broke off all over the place, thus my mess. But, no worries.....it might have worked and it did get cleaned up with no harm!

 So, back to my bowl of hot water, soap, and my aching arms.  As I continued slapping the darn thing around, folding it in half to make handling easier, I noticed the layers attaching themselves to one another.  Okay...this is good!  

Because I hadn't planned on that happening, you can see where the two layers don't meet....but again..that's okay. 

The moral to all this work:  (A) I have several moderately well felted pieces to play with for sun printing.  (B) I won't be using this product again for this purpose. (C) I still love Pellon's wool batting for hand quilting! 

I hope I've saved you some work in case this notion should ever come into your head!!