Making Silk Paper for Felting

It is simple to create silk papers and then cut these into shapes, lay them on your Divine Wool Tops or Felbi prefelt and wet felt them to create your own beautiful woollen felt embedded with lustrous silk designs.

For felting instructions consult the beginners or advanced guide to felting under our instructions link on the home page.

Both tussah and mulberry work well for this project.

Pull very fine tufts of silk off the silk top and lay them down parallel and just overlapping onto a piece of baking paper(parchment paper).

Lay down a second fine layer, perpendicular to the first layer.

If you’d like to create a a different colour on each side of your silk paper, use a different silk top colour for the third layer, again laid perpendicular to the second layer.

A starch spray is the best bonding medium to create the silk paper because the starch will dissolve when you add soap and water during the felting process. Ironing starch sprays like Fabulon work well.

After your three layers are down, hold the starch spray a fair distance from the fibres and gently spray until all the fibres are saturated. Make sure the pressure of the spray does not disperse the silk fibres.

Place another sheet of baking paper on top and then iron until all the moisture has disappeared from between the sheets.

Carefully peel away the top baking sheet. You may need to secure the silk paper with your other hand to prevent it lifting. Now peel the silk paper off the base baking sheet.

Cut your silk paper into the shapes that you want. Make sure you have a sharp pair of scissors as a blunt pair will tear rather than cut the silk paper.

Lay your silk paper designs onto your prepared Divine Wool Top felting base or Felbi Prefelt and hand felt to create a beautiful silk and wool felt.