Felting a Full Fleece Rug

I have seen beautiful rugs made by felting entire raw fleeces. They look just like sheep pelts (from skinning a dead sheep) only without the skin, and the dead sheep. They are kind of like the wool Flokati rugs, except I have no idea how Flokatis are made. This year when we were shearing, Mom and I decided to keep Francine‘s fleece all in one piece so that I could try felting it this way. We carefully removed the whole fleece and rolled it up.

Francine’s fleece has been removed and is draped over her so you can see the beautiful locks.

Today, I unrolled it and laid it out. Its big.

Fleece laid out on plastic, locks facing down and cut ends up.

I’m not really sure what I’m doing, but I know that felting takes heat and water so I sprayed the whole thing down with soapy water and then worked hot water into it, bit by bit, with my hands and feet.

Fleece saturated with soapy hot water and covered with another layer of plastic

Once the whole thing was wet, I covered it with another sheet of plastic and continued to walk on it and rub it with my hands.

Wool Roll

Then I rolled the whole thing up around a pool noodle to see what the other side looked like and squeeze out some of the extra water. You can see the sunbleached tips through the plastic.

This thing is huge and I’m not really sure where to go from here. A big storm is rolling in so I’m not going to be able to work on it much more today (this is definitely an outside project!).