Wool Roving Review - Wysteria Editions

Wysteria Editions Wool Roving

I completed my first wet felting project today and am thrilled at how the Wysteria Editions wool roving performed.  Since I am an extreme wet felting beginner, I guess I should have titled this as "wool roving for beginners".  Wysteria Editions was certainly an easy and beautiful wool to use for my first project.

What is Wool Roving?

Roving is a natural fiber that has been prepared and made into very loose, slightly twisted, bundles of fluffy fiber. The same fiber that is often then spun into yarn.  Wool roving is wool that is at this point in the process and "woolen" if it is made from other materials.

What is Wet Felting?

Let's begin with the definition of the word "felt".

Wysteria Editions 

Felt as a noun:
Felt is a non-woven fabric of wool, fur or hair. Or an article made of this material.

Felt as a verb:
making the material into felt, matting or pressing the material together, or covering an item with felt.

Felting is not a new thing. In fact, it's a very old process and has been done in many cultures. There are a variety of different ways to felt.  I chose wet felting. Wikipedia gives a great description of different felting methods and the definition of wet felting. Their definition is (in part) is:

"Warm soapy water is applied to layers of animal hairs

placed at 90 degree angles to one another. Repeated

agitation and compression causes the fibres to hook together

into a single piece of fabric."  Wikipedia

As a complete beginner, I chose to start with wet felting. I have soap and water. And I can compress, rub, and agitate.  The other helpful items are things such as a sushi rolling mat, plastic bubble wrap, and the ends of recycled pantyhose.

Wysteria Editions Wool Roving

I knew that I wanted to purchase some wool roving. I looked at one local craft store and found one bag of neutral bag of roving. I didn't yet know what project I wanted to do but I knew i didn't want just one off-white item.  In order to save myself the frustration of driving around on a wild goose chase to the various craft stores, I began searching Amazon.

During my search, I found the Wystria Editions 2 oz packs of beautifully colored wool roving.  There are so many colors to choose from that it was hard to decide. I like orange, so I chose a pack with some orange in it.  My order arrived quickly and exactly as pictured.

By that time, I had continued to watch tutorials online and decided that my first project would be felted soap. It seemed like the easiest project for a first project. Frankly, I expected to not be able to successfully get the wool to felt. However, this wool roving felted very quickly and evenly.  Perhaps that is because the Wysteria Editions is "ultra fine" wool roving. I will have to do some more research and experimenting.

I expected the wool roving to have thicker and thinner sections, as yarn does. Or some discoloration since it is a natural product. But I found that it pulled apart very evenly, was without lumps or bumps, and was evenly colored.

If you want to add some color to your felted project, I highly recommend the Wysteria Editions 2 oz pack of wool roving. As I begin to make larger items, I will look for larger packs of bulk wool roving. But you can know that I will order more of this beautifully colored fluff in the future.

For more wet felting ideas, you can join me on Pinterest and check out the many, many beautiful and informative articles.

My felted soap

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