First Time Felting

Ruth Lane is a self-taught fiber artist who loves to create one-of-a-kind fiber art pieces and play with a wide variety of materials, including wool, silk, fabrics, yarns, and threads. She is the author of the book Complete Photo Guide to Felting and has taught and written tutorials about a variety of feltmaking techniques, including basic wet felting, nuno felting, and making 3D felt objects using a resist. A long-time member of the Felting Forum, an online forum of 2,500 feltmakers from around the world, she also blogs about felting and other fiber arts at permutationsinfiber.wordpress.com. Ruth co-owns a fine craft gallery, The Purple Pomegranate, which represents more than 180 American artists whose work includes jewelry, ceramics, metalwork, mixed media, woodworking, glass, fiber, prints, and paintings. She lives in Kalispell, Montana.

Introduction 6
 
GETTING STARTED 9
Equipment and Supplies 10
Working with Felting Needles 18
Wool Varieties 23
Embellishments 24
 
NEEDLE-FELTING TECHNIQUES 31
Needle Techniques 32
Three-Dimensional Figures 56
Adding Small Shapes 66
Connecting Parts 70
 
WET AND NUNO FEL TING 83
Introduction to Wet and Nuno Felting 84
Additional Supplies 85
Basic Techniques 86
Mosaic or Collage 118
 
Further Exploration 122
Glossary 123
About the Author/About the Contributors 126
Index 127