***Felted Vase***

It is really true, the sky is the limit when it comes to felting things out of wool. In fact, there are so many projects I have swirling around in my head, it's hard to decide what to make next...With each project, I am fine-tuning the process and deciding what works best for me to get the desired result.

I am very excited about my felted vase. It was my first resist felting project in which the vessel needed to fit around a cylinder glass vase. I have to admit that after cutting out the resist based on calculations for shrinkage and prior to completing the fulling and shrinking part of the process, I was skeptical as to whether or not the felted wool vessel would fit snuggly around the glass vase. Amazingly enough, it did...AND the vessel turned out to be reversible.

Felted Vase (outside/purple side)

Felted Vase (inside/blue side)

For this resist project I decided to use plastic shelf liner rather than cardboard for my template and it worked very well. Plus, I will be able to reuse the template for future projects the same size. To calculate the measurements for the width of the resist, I added together the width and depth of the glass vase and multiplied by 1.2. For the height, I added the width and height of the glass vase and multiplied by 1.2. For this particular vase, the glass vase measured 3.5 inches wide by 10.5 inches tall. I wanted to add some extra felt at the top, so I added an additional 1.5 inches to the height measurement. Therefore, my resist cut-out measured 8.5 by 18.5 inches. In order to make the edges at the bottom of the vase smooth, I cut rounded corners at the bottom of the resist.


8.5" by 18.5" resist on top of bubble wrap (bubble side up)

First, I laid out the design for the outside of the vessel because for this particular project I was going to turn the vessel inside out for the final stages of the process. 

 

Then I laid out thin wool pieces around the edges, making sure half of the piece was off the edge of the resist in order to make the sides seamless.

 

To complete this side, I laid horizontal rows of wool to cover the rest of the resist.

 

Next, I covered the project with tulle and wet the wool down with warm soapy water followed by rubbing a bar of olive oil soap over the top and, in a circular motion with the tips of my fingers, started gently rubbing the top to start the fibers felting together.

 

I carefully removed the tulle making sure the wool fibers stayed in place and turned the project over. After folding over the overlapping wool with wet soapy fingers, I repeated the process of laying thin pieces of wool around the edge and horizontal rows to cover the resist. I repeated this another time on both sides, only this time I placed the thin wool pieces in vertical rows, making a total of two layers of wool around the resist. For the third layer, or inside layer, I decided to use different colors of wool. The result was a reversible vessel. 

 

As with wet felting projects, the next step was rolling. I rolled the project between bubble wrap (bubble side toward the wool) with the resist still inside 30 times on both sides and in both directions (vertically and horizontally). When the "pinch" test indicated the wool had felted together, I removed the resist and turned the project inside out and rolled it 30 more times on each side and in each direction, periodically checking to make sure the inside was not felting together.

 

After shocking the project by throwing it into the sink about 20 times, it was time for fulling and rubbing the wool until it molded around the glass vase. Once again, I was amazed at how the vessel started to take shape and how much it "shrunk to fit."

 

After rinsing the project in hot and cold water and letting it soak in a water/vinegar mixture (1 qt. water/1 tb. vinegar), it was time to shape it and let it dry. 

 

Here is the finished vessel vase. 

Felted Vase

Glass vase and felted vessel vase cover

Felting is an amazing way to be creative and make your ideas come to life. I hope my blog inspires your creativity...