Description
You will likely find the largest felt industry in the world in and around Kathmandu, Nepal. The street stalls are often buried under beautiful products made of locally produced, colorful felt, often created by entire families.
Felt is a non-woven textile manufactured by compressing wool. The fibers are treated with hot water and form the structure of the material through shrinkage. Felt was presumably the first form of textile produced by humans, although a prehistoric method of interlacing plant strands also qualifies. In any case, the invention of felt preceded that of weaving and knitting by a wide margin. The oldest preserved felt remnants date from approximately 6500 BC and were found in Asia Minor. Felt must always contain at least 30% wool due to the characteristic scales of wool, which do not occur in other fibers. When the fibers slide past each other and the scales are oriented in opposite directions, the scales will interlock. Felt can be made in several ways: wet felting: produced by moistening wool with hot water and simultaneously stimulating it through friction so that the fibers slide past each other. Because the scales prevent them from moving back, the fiber mass becomes increasingly compact and firm. This production step is called fulling. It is a lengthy process, because never more than five percent of the fibers change position at the same time. Something of this can be seen when washing a woolen garment in hot water: the wool shrinks because the fibers have interlocked. needle felting: In this technique, a dry piece of wool is pierced with a barbed needle. The barbs of the needle push the scales of the wool together and do not pull them apart again when the needle is withdrawn. In this way, the felt becomes increasingly dense, and shapes can be created. Needle felt can be produced cheaply by machine using needle rollers. Modern felt usually consists largely of fibers other than wool for the sake of strength.
Making Felt Products
