FELTING 3D OBJECTS: USING A 2D RESIST

 Technique 2: Using a 2D Resist

• For this pot I was making I made a resist out of corrugated cardboard cut in the shape of a circle.
• I put the card on some bubble wrap and began to cover the circle, I went over the edges by about an inch which I folded round to the other side.

• When I had a few even layers of wool on the first side of the circle, (laid down in different directions) I covered it with a piece of netting to hold it in place whilst I wet it with hot water.
• I then gently took off the net and turned it over.
• The process of adding wool , wetting and folding the wool round the edges was then repeated on the other side of the resist.
• Whilst the net was around the shape I added some soap to the wet wool.
• Then, the wool was ready to be felted. I rubbed the wool between bubble wrap and used different hand movements to felt the wool evenly.

• When the wool could hold its shape well and it seemed to be felted fairly evenly, I cut a hole in the wool so I could remove the wet card from the middle. Even though the card is now wet, it still works as a resist for the wool. It also can hold its shape even when wet so is easily removed through a small hole.
• Once the card was removed, I could then work the felt with my hands using different techniques to remove the line/ seam from the edge of the circle to create a bowl shape.
• To finish the felting process off, I rolled the bowl between a tea towel to help it shrink even more and dry it out a bit. 
• Then, I opened it up and let it finish off drying in it's bowl shape,

Even though this technique sounds quite complicated to make a 2D piece to then open up into something 3D, it actually worked out very well! The hole that I cut open stretched out very easily as the wool was wet and hadn't finished being felted. It was hard to get an even edge but that could be worked on and improved. I prefer this piece to the wool I felted around a bottle as I think the shape is nicer. There are also endless amounts of things you could make using this technique with different shapes and sizes of card.

🌱Kat Webb🌱