11600
Etamine de laine

Woolen etamine, exactly as it comes from the weaving loom!

Not washed and with a pretty coarse grip at first, even though it is out of fine merino wool. Only after washing it hot respectively felting it, the fabric turns cuddly soft! Felting this fabric is especially easy in the washing machine. A warm cycle in the machine densifies the fabric, gives it it's fine crinkle structure and makes it comfortably soft. Of course higher temperatures let the fabric shrink even more and offer interesting possibilities for three-dimensional felt structures.

This example shows a design with partially felted on FLYFEL®-tops. Before felting, the fine merino and silk fibres were dyed in natural brown shades, using walnut hulls. Since dyeing with walnut hulls can be done in cold water, there is no risk of felting the tops while dyeing, and the excellent felting qualities of the superfine merino wool are fully preserved.
The loosely applied wool wonderfully connects to the merino fabric of the same fibre-quality, although the felting process takes a little bit longer here, compared to felting on the very delicate Chiffon silk. This example was felted until even the surface of the fabric started to felt, thereby becoming slightly crinkled.

Design example.
A wonderful little example of the various possibilities of manipulating Etamine de laine with felting processes.