Shibori Felt Sample

I have made a couple of pieces of shibori felt before but not for a while. I wanted to try it with two layers of color and cut back the top felt.

This is the shibori felt I made in the past. For the sample I am made today I used some wool that I got as a gift. I’m not sure what breed it is but it felt a little coarser than merino but it felted easily.

This is the wool I used. I think it’s German packaging.

So I laid out a circle of red wool with a fairly thick layer.

Then I added a layer of green wool.

I wet it down and rubbed for a bit on each side. I then rubbed it gently on rubber stair tread.

Here is the felt at pre-felt stage on the back side.

And here is the green side. It’s already starting to shrink a little bit as you can see by the wrinkles.

I then used straight pins to figure out where I wanted to put the folds in the felt.

I stitched it together using a running stitch and button thread. I pulled the thread tight as I went. I then fulled the felt keeping the folds tight together as I fulled.

Here is the piece after fulling. I removed some of the thread but it still has some in there as I couldn’t find a lot of it.

Here’s the back side after fulling.

And then I took a pair of scissors and cut off the top of the ridges revealing the red wool underneath.

I love the textures and the contrasting colors.

Here’s a little closer view. I’m not sure what I’ll do with this piece but I do like the way it turned out. Have you tried this technique? I’d love to see what you’ve made, come on over to the forum and show us!