No sheep died for this rug.. (plus an update of new photos)

I made my first non-destructive, felted ‘sheepskin’ rug yesterday. Why I chose the hottest day of the year is beyond me. Well – it was meant to be a ‘sorting wool in the shade’ time, but a cotted mid-section of a pretty black Shetland fleece inspired me to take control and made something useful from it.

Floor rug or sofa rug, I can’t decide.

After cleaning as much VM as I could stomach from it – yes I know, I will live with the little bits forever now – I started to make the rug. I didn’t take any photos until it was done because it was a truly filthy job and I didn’t want to touch anything and needed a shower afterwards.

Update 13th August 2020

I made another one from a bi-coloured Shetland fleece and took a couple of photos,shown below

I laid the portion of fleece face down on the garden table and sewed together any holes – using wool yarn. I shaped it using this as well, so drew bits together and firmed up the edges.

After lifting the fleece I put an old net curtain on the table and then a layer of of bubble wrap, ( I have to fight to keep a stock of this as my husband throws it out when parcels arrive). On top of this I laid the firmed up fleece face down.

Next I laid layers from my own carded batts of black Shetland across the back. This wasn’t from the same fleece, but from last years equivalent. I did a quick and dirty carding session to get the batts, once through and no picking of bits etc. I criss crossed these to make a firmer backing. Over these I laid a thin layer from a batt of Blue Faced Leicester I had in my store cupboard.

Laying on the backing fibre

Over this I laid another old net curtain, and dribbled boiling water over it all, and some washing up liquid. Then I tightly rolled it around a pool noodle and rolled it back and forth lots of times – for a minute at least. This was the filthy part, as the dirt came out in spurts. Yuck.

Ready to roll

I find rolling the package really difficult as I’ve not got a large enough hard surface in the garden, so the table had to do. It would be a lot easier on decking or concrete.

I opened it all up, checked the felting and added more hot water and rubbed and kneaded any suspect places with a bar of soap to get them felting. The re-rolled for another minute, and repeated it all again.

Of course it still needed washing, which was another filthy job, but finally it was all done!

Drying it took a day in the sunshine. Now its on the sofa, yipee.