Felt tips wanted

[Rich.H]

Recently got hold of a bunch of sheep fleeces for free and rather than try to make wool, I was hoping to use them to make felt with and then use the felt after for various projects.

I know how to clean the wool by hand easily enough however the logistics of manual cleaning are proving troublesome at the moment. I have read numerous times how folk use top loader washing machines to clean wool by hand as a front loader will tumble the wool and cause felting. However since I want to make felt anyway I thought it may be ok to simply throw the fleece into a net bag and let my machine do all the hard work for me.

Obviously I know there will be a risk of damage to the machine from grease and such, but will it do any harm to the wool and will I be able to just card it afterwards for making felt?

[Ellendra]

I'm more curious how you scored free fleeces? I'm designing a house and want to use wool for the insulation and I need to keep the costs down.

[Thomzo]

I was just about to bundle up a load of old pens and pop them in the post to you.

Zoe

[Susie]

^^^ yes me too!

Rich, I don't think it will work, but I can't exactly explain why. What I think you might end up with is a big half-greasy lump rather than flat felt, but I have zero experience with fleeces so I may be entirely wrong and I wish you lots of luck with it.

And my only other contribution is, do they still show the Mike's Carpets adverts on Yorkshire TV because whenever anyone mentions felt it is all I can think of.