What is the Difference Between Wool Felt and Felted Wool?

The DIY movement makes us want to upgrade old clothes for our creative sewing projects. It’s worth noting that we all started looking for leftover wool in thrift stores and tumbling cabinets, and then threw it into our washing machines and dryers and turned it into felt, including myself.

But is it wool felt? Felt wool? As a Felt Products Manufacturer, share with you.

For some people, these two textiles are often misunderstood and may cause confusion. Although their origins—wool rovings—are the same, wool felt and felt wool are completely different textiles; their look and feel are different. Let us see how.

Custom Felt Products

Sheep to roving

When sheep (or any other long-haired animal) is sheared, we will get piles of raw wool fibers; thank you sheep! These fibers are then cleaned and combed (the process of breaking up the unorganized fiber clumps and rearranging them). The result is what we call wool roving. Now here is where each textile goes its own way.

Wool felt

Wool felt is a non-woven fabric. No thread or weaving is involved in the production process. It originated from wool roving. By adding heat, moisture and stirring, the roving is compacted and matted together to form what we call pure wool felt.

Wool felt blends are also made using the above process, but mixed wool fibers and fibers of other materials. The most common combination is wool and rayon, a non-synthetic rayon fiber derived from wood pulp. The properties of rayon are similar to those of cotton and linen, making it an excellent choice for wool blending.

Wool felt

Felt is a woven textile. There is participation in threads and weaving. Like wool felt, it originated from wool roving, but the roving is washed and carded and then spun into threads. This thread is then woven into wool cloth, washed in hot water and dried at high temperatures to simulate the "heating, humidifying and stirring" process used to make wool felt. This process turns the wool fabric into felt wool.

Felt wool shrinks into a thicker "fluffy" texture than the original fabric. This puffiness turns into "soft and fluffy", that's why we like it! The effect of felting wool will vary depending on the texture of the fabric, the wool content (whether it is 100% pure wool), and the washing/drying temperature.

Wool roving is also spun into yarn and used for knitted sweaters, scarves, gloves and other accessories. You can also "feel" these knitted fabrics, but regardless of your washing/drying temperature, they will not be as tight as thread-knitted wool fabrics. Wool yarn is much thicker than wool yarn, and knitting is much tighter than knitting. The homemade felt of knitted garments is looser, more fluffy, and easier to wear.

Both are great!

Each of these two textiles is very suitable for use. I like wool felt because it is soft and strong, durable, and can be made into soft things. It has countless rich, bright colors to choose from, these colors have light fastness and uniformity throughout the process. It will not fray or pilling, and it is sewn by hand like butter.

Felt wool offers infinite possibilities in color, and there are a wealth of texture patterns and lattice patterns to choose from. It is very suitable for soft applique projects and making soft clothes with a touch of drape.

Our company also has Custom Felt Products on sale, welcome to contact us.