What is Craft Felt?

What is Colourful Craft Felt?

Colourful Craft Felt is a proud supplier of high quality coloured felt, both our 100% soft washable and 30:70 wool:synthetic blend retain the soft, durable, flexible features of a traditional wool felt whilst remaining affordable.

Our Craft Felt is approximately 1mm thick although we do stock a selection of 3mm thick coloured felts.
All of our high quality Craft Felt is manufactured to comply with the Toy Trade Standards EN71, BS5665 Parts 1 & 2.

Our Display Felt s manufactured to comply with BS476 Part 7 Class 1 & BS476 Part 6 Class 0 to meet flame retardant standards.

What is craft felt?

Felt is a non-woven textile, traditionally manufactured from wool or other animal hair by a process called “felting”, where the wool fibres are attached together using a process of friction and lubrication. The scaly and twisted nature of the wool fibres allows them to attach to one another (rather like tying knots) when they are wetted and rubbed together forming a mat of fibres.

There are many varieties of felt, from the very thick and rigid to the thin, colourful, dyed fabrics ideally suited for use in arts and craft hobbies: hence the term “craft felt”. The thicker felts are often referred to as “engineering” felt.

Is craft felt manufactured in the UK?

Sadly there are no large-scale manufacturers of traditional wool felt left in the UK. Most craft felt available in the UK is imported either from continental Europe or the States, with traditional wool felt manufacturers still existing in Spain, Germany and Italy.

Craft Felt Care Instructions

Our soft washable craft felt is a washable fabric and to avoid staining other fabric, we recommend you wash it separately at a temperature below 50°C for up to 30 minutes.

Our wool mix craft felt can be dry cleaned but unfortunately, due to the high wool content of this felt it is not suited to washing.

In both wool mix and soft washable felt colour fading may occur over time if left in bright sunlit areas or after several washes / cleaning processes.

Isn’t all felt made from wool?

Felt is traditionally made from wool or a blend of wool and other animal hair because the scaly and irregular fibres are ideally suited to the felting process.

Many modern felts include some synthetic fibres such as viscose or acrylic; here at Colourful Felt we stock both a 100% soft washable and a 30% wool/70% viscose felt. We are proud to say that these are both of an extremely high quality.