Hi Folks, as part of our expansion I'm adding some felting fibre to our store (well, lets be honest - just because I'm a fiber junkie), and I was wondering if I could pick your brains about what type of fiber you like best, and if you use only one type or differ for wet and dry felting, I see benefits to both roving and fleece and cons with both as well, so I thought I'd throw it out there - what do you prefer? I even have a few different breed sources, so if you have breed preferences, let me know!

Thanks for your help!

I like roving better, it kind of has nicer feel to it when you touch and I don´t know, maybe it is just me, but it seems that if I wet felt it makes my hands less rough.

But I like the word fleece better, I mean fairy tale fleece(/wool) sound so much prettier than roving. But I also think I am one of the very few in number that buy products also according to their name (for example I could never buy the knitting book called ¨Stitch and B***h¨, it sound sooooo ugly, even though it might be a really good book from what I´ve heard)

--anu

It's a toss-up. Depends on what your customer want to do with it. I use clean fleece as stuffing, and also as a base for large felted items, since it is less expensive than roving. I use roving for the top, "pretty" layers of felted items, and for spinning...

For needle felting or wet felting, I prefer fleece. Although roving makes a nice accent on the outside of the finished piece when needlefelting. Roving is much too expensive to needlefelt a larger item or toy. Sometimes I use the most economical undyed fleece for the inside (core) of my project, then cover only the outside with the dyed fleece or roving. (Nobody sees the inside or core of the piece, so using the natural wool is fine.)

For the hair of tiny dolls or small fairy dolls, roving is my preferred choice. The fine strands are in scale with the small head of tiny dolls. It's important that whatever roving you choose for felting (either wet or dry needle) that it be long-stapled (the strands are long), otherwise the roving falls apart and acts like mush.

most of the wool I sell is in the form of roving. I do a couple of big waldorf fairs/conferences and sell a ton of wool, and most people seem to want the roving over bags of "fairy fleece".

Thanks for your help everyone! Very useful information :).