Can You Screen Print on Felt? YES You Can!

My name is Erin (@ErinMacKeen on Instagram), and I have been screen printing on textiles for about 6 years and also teach this process. I started printing on felt a little over a year ago when I was working on a series of fabric tarot cards and was drawn to a material that didn’t require me to get out my sewing machine…enter FELT! Not only is felt non-fraying, there is also a stability and tactility that is unique to this material and puts it in a category of it’s own.

The felt tarot cards below are printed on the 100% Wool Craft Felt in Earth Gray.

There are 5 different kinds of felt from The Felt Store that I tested for this project:

• Acrylic Craft Felt (100% Polyester)
• Rayon/Viscose Craft Felt
• 100% Wool Craft Felt
• Wool Blend Craft Felt
• Designer Wool Felt (3mm and 5mm thickness)

For this testing, I exclusively used Permaset Aqua textile screen printing inks as I find the consistency and coverage of these pre-mixed inks to be the best in my experience. You can find this ink direct through the Permaset website as linked above, on Amazon or at some local art supply stores.

The Results

I have grouped the results based on the composition of the felts. As I anticipated, the felts with higher rayon/viscose, or wool content did accept the ink more readily than the acrylic/polyester. But what surprised me, was how successful the results were across the board. 
My “assistant” helped with quality control, I’m sure many of you can relate :)

Rayon/Viscose, Acrylic (Polyester), and Wool Blends

Printing on synthetic or semi-synthetic materials is inherently more tricky as their composition makes them somewhat resistant to the inks. They don’t bind as readily, so the wet ink sits on the surface of the material in a way that doesn’t happen when using plant or animal based fabrics like cotton, linen, or wool.

The images below shows excellent results on: Acrylic Craft Felt (100% Polyester) in Apple Green, Rayon/Viscose Craft Felt in Peach, and Wool Blend Craft Felt (40% Wool/60% Viscose) in Sky Blue.

The secret I found to getting the best results on these felts was to treat them very gently as they were drying. They are more prone to smearing while they’re still wet, so I made sure to keep them stationary on my print table and give them an extended drying time before relocating. The higher the synthetic composition, the more this happens. Hitting them with a hair dryer at this stage can help speed up drying time and make them stable quicker. Once they were dry, the ink wasn’t going anywhere, but this in-between stage requires some extra care.

It’s also worth noting that The Felt Store craft felts are superior in quality across the board to any other brands I’ve had access to through other craft and fabric stores. I have had some real printing fails in the past using some of those products.

100% Wool

Wool is more accepting of the textile inks and I didn’t need to treat them as gingerly while they were drying. The variable introduced by this material though is texture. Anything that interrupts the smooth layering of ink, such as fibers from the wool felt, is going to be visible in the final print. The presence of the fibers is very subtle and perhaps something only a “testing” eye would notice.

You can see the comparison below between the 3mm 100% Wool Designer Felt in Pebble Gray and the Acrylic Craft Felt (100% Polyester) in Apple Green.

This is a feature I actually like about this material, it’s composition is part of it’s charm. I also like when things look like they’re printed by hand, not a machine. But if a super smooth image is important to you, you may need to test this out and see what you think.

I also printed some white ink on the 5mm 100% Wool Designer Felt in Apple Green with a screen I made using a fern frond from my backyard so you could see an example of a less opaque ink on a less fibrous version of this wool.

Overall, I was incredibly pleased with the results on all versions of these felts and can’t wait to use them in future projects. They all held the line of the prints really well and were easy to work with - I have to admit how nice it is to not have to pre-wash fabric! I’ve spent some time handling them post-printing as well and haven’t noticed any cracking of the inks.

Depending on which kind of felt best suits the needs of your project, you can expect to achieve some beautiful screen prints!

Have you tried some screen printing on felt at home? We’d love to see your creative screen printing projects! Share your masterpieces on social media and tag us @erinmackeen and @the_felt_store so we can admire your incredible prints!

Happy Crafting!