File this week’s Craft Corner project under “quick holiday gifts,” and don’t be surprised if it turns up again (in abbreviated form) in our annual “five gifts-ornaments in an evening” story later in the season.
When we visited Otion — The Soap Bar last month, the subject of felted soap (a bar of soap covered with wet-felted wool) came up, and we decided to give it a try.
While the instructions are simple, and completing the process takes less than half an hour, we can offer a few tips in a full column that may help make your soap-felting experience a bit more enjoyable.
We’re including a “Don’t Let This Happen to You” box, illustrated with a photo of our first attempt, which was — to put it kindly — less than satisfactory.
Making felted soap requires a bar of soap, un-spun wool fiber, water, dish soap, the toe end of a nylon stocking, a timer, a washboard or other ridged surface and a wire cooling rack.
Our written instructions follow, and we’ve also included a few Web sites that contain step-by-step photos that can help you along if you get stuck.
Step 1: Wrap the bar of soap with the wool fiber, making sure that the soap is entirely covered.
Step 2: Sprinkle the wool with hot water and massage the bar gently with your hands until it’s thoroughly wet and holds together. Add a drop of dish soap and massage a bit longer, then place the bar in the toe end of a nylon stocking.
Step 3: Set the timer for 10 minutes. Begin the wet-felting process by alternately (and gently) rubbing the bar on the washboard and working it in your hands for the full 10 minutes.
Step 4: Remove the bar from the stocking. Make sure that the felted wool is smooth and fits snugly around the soap. If not, work it a while longer in your hands.
Step 5: Rinse off the lather with cold water, blot the bar dry in a towel and set it on a wire cooling rack to dry.
If presenting the soap as a gift, you can add some decorative touches (see the bowed and belled bar in our photo), or wrap the bar in clear, tinted plastic wrap to enhance the colors.
Tell recipients of your felted soap creations that as they use the soap in the bath or shower, the felting process will continue to a point. The felt casing will shrink a bit more and fit the soap, but will eventually reach a point where it becomes a loose container for the soap as it deteriorates.
You might also want to attach a little tag to your gift soap advising that it be kept in a drainable soap dish so that it won’t turn into a bag of mush.
Note: We used multicolored merino fiber for our samples (except for the blue and white bar with the bow and bell, which was not our creation), but you can use solids or layer a variety of colors to achieve the look you want.
Don’t let this happen to you…
Some of the online instructions may tell you that a few of the elements mentioned above are optional, but we refer you now to our first attempt (see photo). To avoid such a sorry spectacle, take heed of the suggestions below.
1. Be sure to use enough wool fiber, and make sure the bar is completely covered. It may feel bulky at first, but it will shrink down during the felting process.
2. Don’t dunk the bar in a container of water or hold it under a steady stream of water from the faucet; sprinkle with hot water slowly until saturated but not soaked. If you dunk or soak, you’ll end up with a lathery mess and the felting will not progress as desired.
3. Add the drop of dish soap, even though you’ll have plenty of lather without it. We’re not sure why this helps, but it does.
4. Use the stocking. We’re quite certain that the bizarre appendage on our failed first attempt appeared because the fiber was not contained.
5. If you don’t have a washboard, find some other ridged surface to use during the felting process. We ended up — no laughing, please — using the plastic cover from one of those rotisserie chickens you get in the deli section when you don’t feel like cooking. It had the necessary ridges and was sturdy enough to handle all the rubbing.
6. Be sure to work the bar for at least 10 minutes or be prepared for failure. If watching the timer makes you crazy, sing a few selections from your favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera or listen to C-Span on the TV and the time will fly by.
7. Use cold water for the final rinse to help the felting process along.
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