i've been told you have to use real wool

random fact (as much as ancient history is fact) felt (not knit, but in the traditional fabric version of particle board way) was most likely the first fabric ever created from non-animal hide. it came from pulped plant materials. ::music:: the more your knooooow. ^_~

As far as I know, you have to use wool (from sheep). You can add some other fibers in to jazz it up, but the wool is what's going to felt. Are you wet felting (with water/soap) or needle felting? I've only done wet felting- to get the fibers to felt, you need to shock them with hot water and pressure. Adding a bit of liquid soap helps the process a lot. Start gently, but once things start getting stuck together don't be scared to be really rough with it- the more you press, twist, knead and generally beat it up the better felt you will have. Good luck with it- felting is a lot of fun!

Any animal or even Human hair will felt - on the shaft of each hair are tiny scales that will lock together with agitation, heat and moisture.

FYI - if you are working with loose material/wool/hair its called felting. If you are working with woven or knit fabric, it's called fulling.

I have no real tips or tricks being fairly new to felting myself - but I have noticed so far that undyed wool roving will felt faster than dyed. Adding a bit of lanolin soap to your hot water really speeds the process up (and makes your hands soft), and felting the traditional way (ie not needle felting) will build muscles. :0)

Good luck and have fun!

Knitting instructor here. Felting is so fun and easy! The gory details follow:

Picking Yarn:
- To felt, you will need non-machine washable animal hair.
- You can use a blend, but you need approximately 80% animal hair for it to felt (that's the closest I've heard to a rule of thumb) and you'll want to do a test swatch first to make sure nothing... unusual will happen, especially if there is a novelty yarn blended in there.
- Machine-washable yarn has been chemically treated to prevent it from felting in a machine--this is obviously bad if you actually want it to felt.
- Pure white yarns may also have been chemically treated to bleach it and may have stripped the "scales" off the yarn to achieve this, resulting in wool that may not felt well. If you are using a white yarn, or a light, bright color, you may also want to do a test swatch.
- In my personal experience, coarse wools (e.g. not premium merino) felt very well, and mohair felts like crazy, though it can result in a over-all fuzzy look to your garment (which you can brush out to exaggerate, or trim down to downplay). On the up-side, this type of yarn is less expensive than premium merino or alpaca. But, I've seen alpaca and camel felt just fine, too.
- Watch out for color bleeding. Again, it shouldn't happen, but there's always a chance the manufacturer screwed up with the dying. So, if you just need that blend of hot-red and pure white, test them together to make sure nothing odd will happen.
- Personally,I *love* felting with Brown Sheep's wool/merino blend. Never had a problem, though a co-worker couldn't get the pale yellow to felt, no matter what she tried.

Making the actual project:
- The yarn will need room to move around a bit to make it felt. So, you'll want to knit or crochet your project with a loose gauge (e.g. large hook or needle). For example, I'd knit worsted yarn on a 9-11 needle instead of my usual 6-8. (This is part of why felting is awesome--with big needles, it goes so fast).
- Your final knit project will felt by approximately 1/3. However, knitting will shrink more lengthwise than widthwise. The larger the project, typically the greater this difference. The pattern you follow should have accounted for this. If you're making your own project, you'll want to make a larger test swatch, measuring it before and after felting to determine the amount of shrinkage. However, once it's felted, you can also freely cut up the piece, so you can always just cut it down to size afterwards. (Sorry, can't give you specifics on felting crocheting, as I haven't done that--I prefer the smooth feel of felted knitting).

To felt:
- You'll want the hotest water, the lowest level, and the most agitation that your top-loading machine will give you.
- A front-loader is too gentle on your project to get it to felt.
- The old-fashion method is to boil the project in a large pot while stirring (felting is sometimes called "boiled wool" for this reason). I've never tried it, as I've heard your kitchen will smell like sheep for quite some time. But, it's another option.
- Smaller pieces you can even felt by putting hot water in the kitchen sink and rubbing them between your hands.
- If you're using a machine, you'll want to put the project in a bag, like a pillow case or a lingerie bag, to keep the fibers from dirtying up your washing machine.
- Add about a teaspoon of detergent.
- Some will toss in old jeans or even tennis balls to help beat up the piece and speed up the felting. I've never tried it, personally.
- Let the machine have at it!
- If it's your first time, check about every 5 minutes. The felting may seem like it's taking a while to get started, and then you'll start to notice a lot of progress. You'll want to keep checking at short, regular intervals to make sure it doesn't felt down too far--you can always felt it more, but you can't reverse it if it's gone too far.
- Well, actually, if it's a little too small, you can vigorously grab and stretch, but it's best not to rely on this working.
- You can keep reseting the machine for more agitation to keep it felting.
- Once it's down to size, pull it out and rinse it thoroughly but gently by hand in luke-warm water (after all, you don't want it to felt even more now). Some people will tell you that they'll let the machine rinse and spin it out. You can do this--I've done it when I feel lazy and often can get away with it.--however, it can put a permanent crease in your project, thus ruining your hard work (my poor right slipper....)
- After rinsing, wrap it up in a big towel to squeeze out all the excess water you can w/o creasing the project. Then leave to dry.