Wool Comes from Sheep and I’m Cheap: Why I Craft with Acrylic
Oh yeah, I know that wool felt is da’ bomb. It’s thicker, feels better on the skin, holds its shape better, flies around on little wings and gives you kisses when you’re feeling sad. Wool felt rocks, seriously. I admit it. Know what else I admit?
I craft with acrylic felt.
That’s right–acryclic. Made of PLASTIC! Plastic comes from the devil, you know, and yet I put it on my daughters’ felt board, I make their birthday crowns out of it, I applique it onto my holiday buntings:
My name is Julie, and I’m an acrylic felt user.
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My use of acrylic felt for my work may result in a slight loss of quality over the admittedly superior quality wool felt, but I firmly believe that it is the more eco-friendly choice.
Wool, my friends, comes from sheep. As my manifesto dictates, I craft without exploitation of the world’s creatures. Unless I am confident that the sheep was humanely treated, which I am not with most commercially available wool felt, I will not use it, no matter that it might make my daughter’s felt birthday crown look slightly swankier.
Of course, organic and/or locally-produced wool felt are two viable options. If you have a local producer of wool products, perhaps one who leaves her happy farm full of sheep to come sell at your farmer’s market, or if you’re so monetarily successful that you can afford beautiful organic wool felt from online stores such as La Lana Wools, and still feed and clothe your children, you’re awesomely lucky and I totally want to be you–both those options are out of my league.
Instead, I craft with a material that is both cruelty-free and has a positive effect on our environment: I use acrylic felt made entirely from post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. It’s priced competitively, locally available at my regular craft store, and I’m happy with its quality. Ecospun is the brand I use, but perhaps there are others?
For projects in which acrylic felt really doesn’t hold up well, such as sewing stuffies, I use felted wool from thrifted sweaters–by the time they reach the second-hand stores, they’ve likely been partially felted in the washing machine anyway, and a second life as a child’s beloved stuffed animal is, I consider, a respectful retirement for a material that an animal had to sacrifice to produce.
For me, materials matter. What’s your take on the issue?
Well said Julie.
Itzel, I am sorry to say that it was both painful and frustrating to read your comments. First, let’s point out that when there is a red line under a word, it is spelled incorrectly. Second, I read “retarded” and cringed. That mentality really still exists beyond the age of seven?
Beyond all that, I don’t believe Julie is “putting” plastic into the world, that plastic is already produced making the bottles people still choose to buy. It is true that there is one more processing step to make it into felt, but what is the other option? Yes. That’s right. Landfill. Landfill where it will be useless and just clutter up more of the world.
I must say, I do like wool. I LOVE wool, actually. I found this article to be valuable because I never thought about treating the little “baas” humanly because I ASSUMED they were. Now that I think back, I have witnessed a harsh shearing of a sheep and tried to convince myself that is how it is sheared. It is not, and now that I know, I will try my best to gain wool from a humane vendor.
Maybe I’ll even try some plastic pop bottle felt..
Kudos Julie. Glad you made your very mature point in your responses.
you know ,i am a modern bigget but not an asshole, well maybe a little asshole, but i did not call your niece a retard. i called you a retard. i would never call any person with mental health issues a retard. i also did not say that i re-appropriated the word retard. i clearly said and i quote “choose to change the meaning of words and not be afraid of them”
but hey i can see when I’ve hurt someone. and i don’t know you and i should try to be a lesser of an asshole. so I do apologize if i hurt your feelings.
and i will say that we do agree on one thing. DUMPSTER DIVING KICKS ASS!!!
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i like plastic things actually but not as clothes because i don’t sweat in them like in cotton clothes. i don’t like wool at all, it is too itchy for me, so i knit with cotton only, natural dyed.
i am allergic to many things and plastic things are easy to clean and don’t store dust,so if i have to recycle plastic i’ll do something for the home rather than for me.
Yeah, recycled acrylic felt definitely wouldn’t work for clothing–I use it a ton for felt boards, birthday buntings, matching games, scrapbooking–yeah, home stuff.
It’s true, the wool industry is suffering. I’m from New Zealand the home of sheep. I’m glad to say all our sheep roam free in fields and are very well taken care of but unfortunately because people are not as interested in buying wool any more because polyester is cheaper. The farms are going out of business. They are being converted into dairy farms which are far more damaging to the environment.
The whole thing saddens me.
[...] been loving on these birthday crowns for a very long time, now, but because of my concerns about wool felt, I hadn’t been able to make any for my little girls. I tend to try to rely on the natural [...]
[...] been loving on these birthday crowns for a very long time, now, but because of my concerns about wool felt, I hadn’t been able to make any for my little girls. I tend to try to rely on the natural [...]