FULLING ALPACA WOOLOne definition of fulling is: A felt fabric pounded with hammers in order to develop firmness. Well, that's one way to create your wool. You can thicken and shrink your alpaca wool several ways to make a fantastic piece of alpaca felt.
1. Own a horse? You can stuff some fleece under the saddle and ride all day to felt and full your alpaca wool. 2. Lay your felted wool on the floor and stomp it with your bare feet to make alpaca felt. 3. Drop it in a washing machine and agitate it. 4. Throw it onto a table over and over again. 5. Roll the wool in a bamboo mat/shade or canvas to get wool to thicken. 6. Use hot water, soap, a washboard, and lots of elbow grease to firm up your wool. 7. Toss it in a dryer with no heat and a pair of jeans. The force of the fabric being slammed around in the dry helps the fibers migrate together. We use a combination of the last two methods to firm our alpaca wool. Once your alpaca fiber is to the pinch stage (you can pinch up fiber and it holds together), it's ready for the dryer.
Place the alpaca wool in a mesh laundry bag.
Throw the bag into the dryer with a pair of old jeans that won't bleed. Turn the dryer on using no heat. You can use heat, but we find we have more control if we don't use heat. Check every five to ten minutes. When it has thickened, remove your alpaca felt from the dryer and the bag.
We shrink and firm our felt just a tad more on the washboard to finish the process. This method of fulling requires less elbow grease than just using the washboard alone. We like the control we have with this method. Fulling your alpaca wool makes it thicker and firmer. Now you can take this nice piece of felt and make anything you want.
Return from fulling to alpaca wool.
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