Short question, long answer. There are many types of felt, and many ways of making felt. You can make it in your home, or it can be mass produced. There are books and books about how to make felt for various purposes. All felt is made my matting or 'felting' fibers together. Most felt is made from wool, hair, or animal fur. To matt it together, you first wet the material, then pound or roll it.
Here is how you can make it yourself from wool. Make sure you read all the instructions before you begin.
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Make sure you have an area that can get wet. A table outdoors or someone else's bedroom should be sufficient. Cover the table with a piece of plastic, like saran wrap and leave some slack.
- Use clean wool, and pull it into short sections.
- Lay the pieces of wool on the plastic, line them up overlapping them slightly. Do this vertically then horizontally over an area about 35cm squared.
- Repeat step three.
- Cover the wool with the rest of the plastic.
- Place it in a bathtub, or something similar, and roll the plastic up with the wool inside, roll it back and forth working your hands evenly across the entire length.
- Put some hot water in the tub and roll it in that for about 3-4 minutes. The friction here is what causes the wool to felt.
- Unroll it on a towel outside of the tub, remove the top layer of plastic and rotate the felt 45 degrees, then put the plastic back on and roll it back up. Be careful not to break it, the felt is very fragile.
- Make sure you still have hot water and roll it again for 3-4 minutes.
- Repeat steps 8 and 9 three more times. Test the felt by rubbing it with your finger. The fibers shouldn't move and the felt should be quite thick. If it is still soft, turn it again and keep rolling it in the hot water.
- Remove the felt from the plastic and rinse it in cool water.
- Dry the felt by placing it in a towel and add pressure so the towel absorbs the water.
If you decide you want to actually try this, you can put various types of color on the top layer to make a design, or you can at least pick a nice color if you're not artistic.
Here's a slightly different set of instructions, see which one works best, if you're bored:
http://paivatar.com/AFA////library/howto/ht00/how_felt.htm
