Tips for sewing felt fabric

Tips for sewing felt fabric. No matter if you’re a beginner or a professional sewist, you might find it difficult to work with felt. Unlike other fabrics, felts behave differently. As you can find it easy to work with felt, you can also find it difficult. It depends on your project. Just like the other fabrics, felt has advantages and disadvantages. As it can be perfect for a particular project, it can be bad for another one. To be sewing felt easily, you should study the tips listed below

What is the meaning of felt?

Felt is a fabric consisting of fibers that have been meshed together. To be precise, felt fabric is non-woven. People have been using felt for a long time. Some people ever refer to it as one of the oldest fabrics. Unlike other fabrics, you don’t need a loom to produce felt. In the olden days, people use felt in making shoes, tents, and the likes.

Today, people have learned a lot of things to sew with felt. As it is used for decoration, it is also used for clothing. Some people even use felt for different crafts. Felt is also used in industries. It is used to soundproof machines. There are a lot of felts. Different felts are used for different things. Some of them have bright colors while the other ones are undyed. The wool of sheep is used in making the undyed ones.

Just as felt comes in different colors, felt also comes in different weights. Some of them are even thicker than the other. For padding, thick felts are used. They are also used for insulation. On the other hand, thin felts are used to work on felt cloth craft ideas.

Thin felts are also used to make hats. If you want to sew at a fast speed, you should consider using a felt sewing machine. To improve branding on hats and other clothing, you should design woven labels.

Advantages of sewing felt

In some ways, Diy felt fabric should be used ahead of other fabrics. The reasons are explained below.

No fraying

As stated earlier, felt is not woven. That is why its edges never fray. Whenever you’re working on a craft project that doesn’t require sewing, felt is the best fabric that you can use. It is also perfect for beginners who are still new to sewing. If you’re making antiques or any form of decoration, felt is the best material that can be used. In general, you should always use felt in projects where hemming is not required.

Felt is cheap

Even though there are felts that are expensive, it doesn’t mean you should spend much on all felt sewing projects. The expensive felt is the high-end ones. If you’re purchasing the regular felt, you’re not going to spend much.

Since a lot of beginners don’t want to invest too much in learning, they choose to work with cheap materials like felt. Instead of using a felt sewing machine, the majority of them prefer to sew felt by hand. You just have to know the right project to use felt. If you’re working on a project that requires woven fabrics, you shouldn’t use felt.

Easy access

Natural felt fabric can be purchased easily. You just have to visit the fabric store close to you. Almost all types of felts are sold there. You just have to request the particular one that you want. If you want to purchase materials for felt cloth craft ideas, you don’t need to visit a store. They are sold in almost all supermarkets. Felt is also sold in some hobby shops.

If you want to purchase felt to use for large felt sewing projects, you should visit a fabric store. Felt of the finest grade is sold there. If you have enough time, you can decide to make felt by yourself. All you need is unspun wool. To make it easy for people to identify your products, you should consider making hangtags.

Versatility

Diy felt fabric can be used in a lot of ways. No matter how versatile you are, you might not even be able to practice all the ways that felt can be used. If you’re making winter accessories, you can use felt. Some of the winter accessories that can be made with felts are hats, scarves, and the likes. Felt can even be used for home decorations. You just have to combine different shapes into garlands. To add a nice texture to your pillows, you can use felt shapes. The floor can also be kept safe by padding with felt.

To store your felt properly, felt boxes should be used. Just as you can use other fabrics to make a lot of things, felts can be used to make accessories. As they can be used to make felt bags, they can also be used to make felt purses. If you want to make something to be water-resistant, you can use a thick felt. That is why felts are used in making house shoes. Apart from those things, there are still a lot of things that can be made with felts.

Disadvantages of sewing felt

Even though there are a lot of things to sew with felt, it has its disadvantages. If you want to learn how to sew felt, you shouldn’t study the advantages only. You should also study the disadvantages. The disadvantages are explained below

Elasticity is minimal

If you take time to study how to sew felt fabric well, you will know that it has a lot of limits. If you’re working with felt with lightweight, it would stretch easily. On the other hand, heavy felts will also stretch but not as much as the ones with lightweight. Whenever you compare natural felt fabric to woven fabrics, you would notice that felt is a bit resistant.

Since felt doesn’t breathe, it is not the ideal material for garments. You should consider using other fabrics. If you’re someone that likes to stretch, you might not enjoy working with felt. You should also be careful with felt. If you mistakenly over-stretch it, it won’t go back to its previous shape.

The texture is coarse

Felts are not only stiff, they are coarse. Unlike silk, felts lack sheen. The texture is also not soft like that of fleece. Felts are that way because of the fibers that are used to make them. Unlike smooth fibers, rough fibers can mat together easily. You’re not going to always need soft fabric. Whenever felt is used for decoration, it would work excellently. The reason is that it has a nice texture. To improve branding on anyone of your felt fabric products, you should make care labels.

Felt is likely to shrink

Felts are of different types. Some types of felt shrink easily. The majority of them were made with natural wool. To avoid shrinking, make sure that you always correctly wash felt. To keep felt in a good condition, you should either wash it with your hand or with a machine.

Whenever you’re using a washing machine, make sure that a cool cycle is used. You should also stay away from dryers. You should try to put the things made of felt in a good shape. After that, you should proceed to dry them well.