Wonderful Woolens

The photo above shows the cabinet where I store

my felted wool.  

I have been collecting 100% wool clothing 

throughout the summer.  I cut it up and wash 

and dry it as shown here. This box was filled 

to the brim, I find it is better to save up my 

purchases and felt it all at once, that way I can

separate into different colors and still have a

good amount of wool in each wash load.

This is what it looks like after I separate the

wool after felting.  That's two large tables

filled with wool.

And this is what it looks like after trimming,

pressing and rolling.  I like to roll as much as 

I can so there are less folds to press out when

I want to work with it.  I have now started adding

a paper band around the roll to try to keep it in

place.  In the past, I would just store the rolls side

by side but I found they could unroll and get

messy.  I'll see how this goes...

This is a bin of wool with interfacing still 

attached.  If it is fused strongly to the wool,

I keep it on and use this for backings or

pincushions.

Here is a lucky mistake.  The wool on top is

the original.  A stray piece got mixed in with

the red and pink wool in the wash and look at

the wonderful result on the bottom.  I plan to 

add some tweeds to the red washes in the future

since I liked this so much.  This is a good reminder

of how important it is to separate colors, especially

red!

And now I'm ready to get stitchin' in 

front of the fireplace.

So I have a few questions for you:

How do you store your wool?

How to you keep your wool together (like the paper band)?

Do you do anything differently as far as felting?