How Long Does Handmade Felt Art Take to Make?

One of the questions we’re asked most often is: how long does handmade felt art actually take to make?

At first glance, a felt object might look simple – soft fabric, bright colours, a familiar everyday item recreated in felt. But behind every single piece is a very careful and thought-out process involving designing, cutting, stitching, painting, and packing. Each stage takes time, patience, and attention to detail.

Here’s a little insight into the time that goes into making a piece of handmade felt art in Lucy’s Felt Cave.

Designing The Pieces

Every felt piece you see at Lucy’s shows has been carefully designed and adapted into felt sculpture form. Before any fabric is cut and sewn, time is spent studying the object and deciding how best to recreate it in felt. This might involve sketching, experimenting with proportions, and deciding on colours. Each design can take up to or over an hour to make, but it’s such an important part of the process, and can sometimes take just as long as the making itself.

Boris and Bertha

Once the designs have been finalised, the fabric cutting begins on Boris and Bertha (our trusty fabric cutting machines). Large sheets of felt are laid out, carefully measured, and trimmed to size by hand before the digital designs are input into the machine software for cutting. Hundreds of flat pieces can be cut at once, and the time this stage takes depends on the quantity required. Once everything is ready, the pieces are gathered and bagged up, ready to be sent out to our freelance sewers.

Sewn by Hand

Once cut, the felt pieces are sent to our skilled freelance sewers, who work from home. They carefully hand sew and stuff each item with the utmost precision and attention to detail. Sewing a batch of 100+ felt items can take up to three weeks.

Painting The Felt

Every felt piece you see in Lucy’s installations has been hand painted by her. All the lettering and detailing is done freehand, carefully matched to the exact style of the original packaging. Painting on fabric requires building up layers to avoid smudging or overlap, which means each layer needs around 12 hours to dry before the next can be applied. Not every piece requires this process, but most do. Adding to the time in which it takes to complete a single piece. Lucy paints from 6am to 9pm, seven days a week (with the occasional day off), completing up to 200+ pieces a day depending on their complexity. In total, a single piece can take two or more days to fully paint and dry.

Quality Checking

Once painted and fully dried, each felt piece is quality checked before being boxed up and shipped to its destination (wherever Lucy’s show may be). Any final adjustments are made at this stage—for example, tightening stitching or trimming away excess paint. The pieces are then carefully packed, ready for transport. Considering the scale of Lucy’s shows (20,000+ felt items), this is a lengthy process.

The Felt Process

From the initial design and cutting stages through to painting and packing, the entire process is a long and carefully coordinated one. It can take over a month for a single felt piece to be completed. Because of the way the studio operates, everything runs on a continuous cycle with no room for downtime. Designs need to be finished so pieces can be cut and sent out to the sewers; the sewers then return their work in time for Lucy to begin painting, while the next batch is already in progress. Everyone plays a vital role in keeping things moving and bringing Lucy’s installations to life!