MAKING A FESTIVE FIBERS FELT RUG (This page will take 5-10 minutes for the pictures to fully load on dial-up. Wait. It's worth it.)

	Carol wanted a felt rug with zebra stripes for here entranceway. Carol came by our studio for a design session. Design sessions can occur over the phone, and via mail and e-mail also. If we're in your area, we can come to your home. Often Nicole designs from scratch, using ideas, images and colors from the customers home, blending in the customer's personality, in order to create something totally new and wonderful. In Carol's case, she loved a sketch from Nicole's portfolio (shown left) that they used as a starting point.
	Carol liked the outside border and the spiral center. She went through tubs of fiber colors finding the right shades of yellows, blues greens, etc., but most importantly for her is she is crazy for zebras and asked Nicole is she could somehow work that motif in. No problem for Nicole painted this rendering on the spot. As it turned out Carol liked the changes. If she hadn't we would have continued the design process until she did. We want to ensure that you're 100% happy with the design before we start dying colors. Did you know that Nicole was Textile Design Director in her previous life? She designed the patterns for home furnishings fabrics you would buy off the shelf, and indeed may already have in your home. Who better to know how to custom design home furnishings specifically for you?
	Nicole dyes the colors. We use acid dyes (the acid usually being white vinegar). The dyes we use are specifically formulated for wool fibers. We use only the most colorfast dyes. For example, we have a south facing house from 1830 with old-time windows (no UV protection). We've had famous brand rugs fade quickly in this light. In comparison, our Festive Fibers rugs have not faded in the same light. These dyes also allow us to get a luster and vibrance we couldn't otherwise get. (Note: The fiber is actually in the dyepot for hours.)
	Our wools are selected for their softness, sheen and durability. We get our wools from small sheep farms in the northeast. It's a nice relationship where the sheep farmers get good business from us, and we get the pick of the wools. (We used to know the sheep by name - but now the sheep farmers know what we need and select the wool for us.) We create a blend of wools from several breeds of sheep. Those wools are sent off to a processor who cleans, blends and combs the fiber and sends it back to us in "batts". Batts are what you would stuff your sleeping bag or quilt with. Nicole is putting a small portion of a batt into the pot for dying in the picture above on the left.
	This is a rug we laid out several years ago. We're using it here to show all the layers of fiber that go into a Festive Fibers rug. Our rugs start out as about 6 inches thick in fiber. Actually there are more layers than this picture shows. The crisscrossing of layers helps the fibers lock together and allows the piece to shrink more consistently in both length and width. You can see that the pattern is the top of many layers of wool fiber.
	All the fiber dyed and dried, Nicole lays out Carol's rug. The rug starts out 25% wider, 25% longer and about 6 inches thick. (The percentages are for our particular blend of wools and the way that we felt.) It is a stack of all the different colors laid out in pattern. You can see that the outside leaves section looks flatter. Nicole has already "needle felted" the leaves gently into place. She will do the same with the inner section, when she is done with the pattern. It took a good solid two days to lay out the pattern.
	We wet down this huge pile of wool with hot soapy water, press the pattern into place, and roll it up like an enormous sushi inside a straw mat (actually a curtain from Home Depot). Then roll the sushi. For about two days in this case. Our fabric and rugs are all lovingly made by hand by Tom and Nicole. For smaller rugs we do have some machinery with which we can start the felting process, but the reality is that we need to do more rolling by hand than by machine on each piece. If you would prefer to have your rug entirely handmade with no machines, just ask.
	We roll a little, adjust a little, roll a little, adjust a little. The basic science behind felting is that wool fibers naturally lock together when heated and agitated. This is why your sweater shrinks in the hot washing machine. (and you know that when you shrink your sweater you can't unshrink it - it is solidly locked together. Bad for sweaters, Good for rugs.)
	This rug will shrink down to 8' x 5'. It took us most of two long days to accomplish this. Rolling and checking. Rolling and checking. For a wallhanging we could have finished after one day. To make it solid enough for a rug, we roll it the extra day. You might not notice the difference, but we do.
	When the rug is just about felted, we trim the edges. (We don't always do this. Some people prefer the more organic flowing edge.) Then we felt a little more to soften the hard cut edges. Then, to the sink...
	We rinse and agitate in the sink several times through the process. Like a washing machine. We can get a lot of fiber interlocking happening here. The soap is good early in the process to help hold the pattern in place. The more the pattern locks in, the less we need the soap. At the end we do large rinses in alternating hot and cold, plus a vinegar bath. By the end of these rinses, water is beading up off of the rug it is so well locked together. A nice quality for your rug to have, yes?
	Voila! The finished rug.
	Carol's rug was made for her entranceway. We, living in New England, have 6 doors and no real entranceway, so you get to see what it would look like in the dining room. Hmmm, we might need to keep it.

Want to learn to make felt? Join us for a Festive Fibers Feltmaking Workshop. Click Here!